Diplomatic Piracy 2: Black Iron Key
by Twist
Summary: Sequel to 'Diplomatic Piracy'. Vetinari and his crew are commissioned by the Patrician to go on a treasure hunt for a cursèd treasure. Young Sam can't resist the call of the sea. Craziness and nautical battles ensue. Obviously a heavy AU.
1. Treasure? O rly?

Author's Note: This is a definite work in progress. Which means that it may never be finished. Probably, though, cause I like pirates. I recommend you read Diplomatic Piracy first, because that's just the smart thing to do. First person to tell me Vetinari's not in character gets laughed at and stalked on Facebook. I'll do it. Then I'll set your favorite houseplant on fire and make an NEDM on YTMND about it.

... Seriously, I will.

Love, your favorite author with a blatant disregard for characterization.

--

The room was dark, creating a foreboding and oppressive atmosphere. Candles guttered along the center of the table. At one end there sat a man, fattened on the cream of the high life, dressed in the finest silk robes and wearing ornate gold jewelry. On the table in front of him, there was a small pile of paper, looking lonely and neglected in the middle of the dark wood surface. The man's pale blue eyes darted nervously over the first few lines of script on the top page. He licked his lips and sighed, clasping both pale, fatty hands in front of his face. He looked up to the opposite end of the table.

It was empty.

The man sighed and leaned forward, eyes cast somewhat downward in a gesture of submission. "Thank you for coming," he said quietly.

Silence. You could practically hear the wax dripping off the candles.

"You know better than most, I am sure, that I am a man to whom eating one's words is nearly the pinnacle of all things dishonorable –" and here he paused, as though expecting a snide remark from the empty end of the table. It didn't come.

With a gulp, he continued. "I am very ashamed to say that this is a case where I tragically must. A recent discovery has come to my attention, and I feel it must be dealt with quickly. This is going to take a man with intelligence, experience and expertise in the political field, as well as a good deal of experience in all things nautical."

More silence. The candles at the other end of the table flickered, disturbed by a passing breeze. The fat man was sweating now. He licked his lips once more, than unclasped his hands, laid them flat on the table and looked the darkness at the opposite end of the table squarely in the face.

"I'm willing the withdraw the decree of exile, completely and utterly."

Something was happening at the other end of the table. The darkness stirred. An outline was defined. And then the darkness cracked a smile, silver teeth glinting in the candlelight.

"Talk."

The fat man sighed, relieved that the other party involved in the meeting had finally decided to participate. "Thank you, Havelock."

"I didn't say I'd do it yet. I merely displayed interest," the other man said, resting his elbows on the table and leaning forward. "Now talk, Rust. My time is a valuable commodity."

Lord Rust, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, bit back the urge to remark on the fact that a pirate's time couldn't possibly be that valuable. As much as he despised Vetinari and everything the man did, he needed him for this. The city needed him for this.

"Do you know anything about this?" he asked, trying to sound careless despite the fact his voice was trembling. With one be-ringed hand he withdrew a heavy black-iron key from his pocket. It thudded dully when it hit the table. "It was found in a gutter on Lower Broad Way."

The pirate picked up the key, turning it over and taking in every inch. "Where's the map?" he asked finally.

"What?"

"The map." Vetinari fixed Rust with a cool blue stare. "This key always has a map with it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rust snapped. "A clerk found it wrapped in a dirty piece of cloth in the gutter, completely devoid of a map."

"Where's the piece of cloth?" asked Vetinari, holding the key up. Candlelight tried to glint dramatically off it, but the black iron killed it.

Rust rolled his eyes and withdrew the disgusting cloth pouch it had been found in out of his pocket. "There's nothing on it."

"Really?" Vetinari casually pocketed the key, much to Rust's displeasure, and snatched the cloth from the Patrician. He tore the seams on the sides, making it a simple cloth rectangle. Then, with complete nonchalance, he held it up to a candle.

"Bloody, hells," breathed Rust. Visible only by the light of the candle, black lines appeared across the surface of the cloth, clearly marking out a path to the Slakki. "Clear as day."

"I'll do it," Vetinari said, folding the cloth up and likewise pocketing it. "Conditions being that my decree of exile gets revoked completely, and I'm given a full pardon."

Rust scowled, but considered the alternative. At least he knew Vetinari was, by and large, good for his word. "Fine," he spat.

"And I get everything of value that may or may not be found in the location marked on the map excepting whatever the key provides access to."

"Now, I say!"

Vetinari extended a cloth-wrapped hand, light glinting off his rings. "Deal?"

Rust snarled. "You bastard. I should send the navy instead."

Vetinari clucked disapprovingly. "Sending a line of government defense to do the work of one pirate, his ship and crew? Sounds like a very poor idea, Ronnie."

"Then I'll just find another bloody pirate."

Vetinari crossed his arms and leaned forward, smirking. "Fine, find another pirate. But don't expect to ever see any bit of that treasure. In fact, might as well give up on surviving your first five minutes in a meeting with him, because those rings look incredibly valuable." He extended his hand once more. "Deal, under my conditions. Take it or leave it."

Rust lurched forward and seized the pirate's hand, snarling. He tried to maybe get a rise out of the other man by gripping extremely tightly, but that all went to pot when Vetinari nearly crushed the Patrician's hand with practiced ease. "Deal, you bloody bastard."

"Excellent," replied Vetinari, grinning darkly.

"I hope you die after I get my treasure."

"Tsk tsk, Ronnie." Vetinari rose, and made his way to the wall of the room. "Greed is the most deadly vice of man." And with that, he pressed an innocent-looking spot on the wall. The promptly slid open, and Vetinari vanished into the passage.

"Bastard," the Patrician spat, once the wall had slid shut once more.

--

Young Sam was a growing boy. His father was amazed at the amount such a skinny boy could put away in one meal: like he was a machine with an insatiable need for fuel. For a man who had been raised in a home where food was a precious commodity, Commander Vimes often was absolutely flabbergasted by the boy's bottomless stomach.

"Now, Sam, not so quickly," Sybil scolded the boy gently. "You'll choke on something."

"With all due respect, mother, I am eating pasta." The younger Vimes boy smirked a little, and so did his father, despite his efforts to take the stern approach along with his wife. Young Sam had got all the smart-alec brains of his father, and all the quiet intelligence of his mother. He also got his father's wiry frame and mousy brown hair, though his clear blue-green eyes were unmistakably Sybil's. All in all, Young Sam Vimes was a quite handsome boy at age fifteen, and smart to boot. The Commander couldn't have been more proud.

"Nevertheless," Sybil said, after scowling a little at the snarky comment. "You can choke on pasta just the same as you can choke on a vegetable."

"Yes, mother," the boy said, casting his eyes downward and focusing on his dinner. He and his father shared a subtle wink, and Vimes the older was about to attempt to choke down a piece of lettuce when the bell rang.

"I've got it," he said quickly, nearly leaping to his feet. His wife scowled.

"No, you do not. Willikins is here for a reason, dear," She smiled a little, eyes narrowing somewhat. "Eat your salad."

Vimes held in a sigh and sat back down, fork still in hand. Across the table, his son was sniggering. "You eat yours too," he mumbled, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Young Sam's salad. The boy shot him a dirty look. "Don't look at me like that, your mother says vegetables are good for you."

"Yes," Sybil said, with all the confidence of a woman who has thoroughly researched vegetable consumption and knows she is an expert in the subject. "It provides you with essential vitamins and nutrients that you don't otherwise gain from meat, pasta and bread products."

"It still tastes nasty," said Young Sam sullenly, poking reluctantly at an asparagus shoot.

"More eating and less talking, Sam."

As both Vimes males experimentally prodded their greens, as though they might suddenly mutate into Killer Veggies From Hell, Willikins poked his head in through the dining room door.

"A visitor for the family," he said courteously, bowing. "He is happy to wait until the meal is finished. I left him in the Almost Hideous Brown room."

"Dinner will keep," said the Commander quickly, making a break for it. At this point, he didn't much care who the visitor was, as long as it wasn't a giant zucchini.

Sybil was obviously of two minds about the whole situation. Finally, she pursed her lips and rose. "I suppose we were almost finished anyhow." Following her lead, Young Sam leapt up from the table, spearing a tomato triumphantly.

"Whoever this is, they are my favorite guest," he whispered mischievously to his father. The Commander hushed him, but secretly he was in complete agreement with his son. The evening meal had certainly become much calmer and less interrupted in the thirteen years Vetinari had been gone, with the downside that vegetable consumption in the household had risen by a staggering 25.

The family made their way to the door of the Almost Hideous Brown room. Once outside, Sybil tucked in Young Sam's shirt and surreptitiously cast an investigative glance over her husband. Finding that his state of dress was as appropriate as it ever was, she nodded and – with all the grace of a lady born to be hospitable and kind – cast open the doors with a sincere smile.

Their guest could not have cared less. He was lying on the sofa, as stretched out as possible, with a very well worn leather tri-corn covering his face. By all appearances, he was fast asleep. Despite this minor setback, Sybil's smile never wavered or waned. In fact, she strode right over and lifted the cap, smiling even more brilliantly.

"Oh, bloody hell," the Commander muttered.

"Havelock Vetinari where have you been?" Sybil asked delightedly, sweeping across the room and shaking the man slightly. He swatted a tan, thin hand at her in annoyance and sat up, snatching his hat back and putting it back on as though it were some high religious ceremony.

"Dad," Young Sam whispered as the hat replacement occurred, "is there a pirate in our house?"

"Meet your godfather," Vimes muttered back.

"You could have finished your meal, you know," Vetinari said, rising and bowing cordially to Lady Sybil. "I was sleeping on something that doesn't rock and is in no immediate danger of sinking. There was no rush."

"Oh, no trouble at all!" exclaimed Sybil, hugging him. "Besides, you always have had a knack for interrupting mealtimes."

"Bad luck I suppose," he replied, smiling thinly. He knew quite well that this evening's interruption had not been bad luck at all: he'd been hiding in a bush in the back garden for the past two hours for the sole purpose of interrupting the Vimes' evening meal, just for old times' sake.

"Bad luck my eye," said the Commander gruffly. He strode forward and snatched a holly branch from the pirate's sword belt. "I don't suppose you have many holly bushes on your boat, do you?"

"Very observant," Vetinari said, a little smug, a little approving and very comical. Vimes still hadn't figured out if the slurred Morporkian accent mixed with Krullian was all an act or just a by-product of too much rum. "Good to see you again, Commander. Still alive, I gather?"

"Oh, stop it," Sybil said, smiling. "You look well yourself."

"You flatter me," said the pirate. "It's all the rum; keeps everything well-preserved."

"Everything except your liver," Vimes grumbled. He had to admit, be it reluctantly, that Vetinari looked good for someone their age. He was, as always, tall and thin, with an aura of haughtiness that was, apparently, quite permanent no matter the circumstances. He was just as tan as the last time Vimes had seen him, and he still seemed to be wearing some ridiculous kind of makeup. The only real changes were a few silver teeth and his now shorter hair, which had turned from jet black to completely white. And the jewelry, which Vetinari was hastily pulling off.

"I actually hate it," he was saying to Sybil, dropping the rings into his many pockets, "but it's a pirate thing. The more gold you have the more dangerous you are. Apparently."

"So you are a pirate!" came a triumphant young voice from the doorway. "I knew it because of the hat – no one wears those anymore."

"I wear it, thank you," Vetinari said loudly, turning to face Young Sam. Seeing as the Commander was in his line of sight, the politician-turned-pirate firmly pushed the man out of his way, fixing the young boy with the same blue stare that had turned so many politicians to mere blathering idiots. "You must be Sam."

"Sam Vimes the Younger," the boy said, standing up as straight as he could. "I'm fifteen, you know."

"Are you?" Vetinari asked, as though he were surprised. Then, as if the other two adults in the room had completely dropped off the map, he swaggered over to the boy.

"Is he drunk?" Sybil whispered to her husband.

'No," Vimes murmured back, "he always walks that way anymore. It's the rum – he's never really sober, I don't think."

"I kind of like the way he swings his hips," she observed. "He never did that before."

"Sybil, he's crazy and a pirate."

"Well, whatever," she said, happily unconcerned with Vetinari's profession of choice. "You don't think he'll hurt Sam, do you?"

"I'd disembowel him right here."

"Probably not, then."

"I have books about pirates," Sam was informing Vetinari. "I've read all about them. I could probably be an excellent pirate."

"Where do you go to school, Sam?" Vetinari asked, completely ignoring the teen's declaration of pirate expertise.

"The Assassin's Guild."

Vetinari looked surprised. Eyebrow raised, he spun to face the boy's parents. "Is he lying?"

"Unfortunately, no," the Commander growled, lighting a cigar. Sybil made a disapproving little noise.

"It's the best education in the city. Besides, he doesn't have to be an active member of the guild afterwards if he doesn't want to," she said stiffly.

"Of course it's the best education in the city. Best in the world," Vetinari said dismissively, as though Sybil had just stated something so obvious even newborns knew it. "Cobra House, I hope."

"Broken Moons, actually," Sam said, disdainfully. "Cobras are almost all there on scholarship."

"Sam!" Sybil scolded.

"Oh, scholarship," Vetinari said, faking equal disdain. "How crass of me to suggest there are students in economic brackets other than yours."

Young Sam scowled at the pirate, who was making quite a show of examining the rag tied around his wrist. Finally, the boy huffed and rolled his eyes. "Pirate," he muttered. Then he stalked out of the room. Vetinari stuck his tongue out at the boy as he retreated. Then he turned back to the Commander and Sybil, smiling serenely.

"Charming lad, isn't he?"

Sybil sighed. "It's a phase, I'm sure. Now, would you care for some tea?"

"Absolutely," said Vetinari, not missing a beat. Sybil hurried out of the room to find someone to start tea, leaving the pirate and Watch Commander alone.

"Thank you for that," Sam said stiffly. "Boy needs to be put back in place every once and a while." He sighed. "It's hard not to let them get spoiled, living like this."

"Oh, it's a phase, I'm sure," Vetinari said mildly, walking around the room and examining the various shiny and valuable things contained therein.

"So what brings you back to Ankh-Morpork?" Vimes asked, seating himself on the couch. "I though you went to Fourecks."

"I did," Vetinari said, turning a priceless vase upside-down and peering at the bottom of it. "Then I went to Genua and NoThing Fjord and Bhangbhangduc and all those sorts of places."

"Doing what? Not sightseeing, I'm sure."

"Honest pirating, of course. The counterweight continent is practically littered with gold." He grinned and moved on to the next valuable object, carefully setting the vase down. "And Genuan swamps are always good for a novelty or two."

"And, er, how's the boat?"

"The Boat?" Vetinari asked. "Oh, very good. Excellent. First mate had to go, of course, but such is piracy." Vimes winced as the pirate fumbled and nearly dropped a crystal swan Sybil had got for Hogswatch one year.

"The first mate?" Vimes asked, trying to recall Vetinari's crew from the last time he'd seen them, all of thirteen years ago. "Was that –"

"The girl? Yes. Most of the rest of the crew has changed as well, you know. Of course, I like to think I've upgraded." He smirked to himself. "I'd never imagined Drumknott would have wanted to go pirate so much."

"Drumknott?" Vimes' mind boggled for a moment. "The clerk? I thought he left when you did."

"Oh, it was a bugger tracking him down all right. Turns out no one else wanted to hire him. Found him in Kythia, drunk as a monkey."

Vimes sighed. "Of course you did."

"It was a coincidence, actually." Vetinari had at last put the swan back and moved on to the shiniest of baubles in the room. He stared at it. It stared back. "What's this?"

Vimes tried to re-arrange his train of thought. Upon taking in the cold, ruby eyes of the statue, he shrugged. "Dunno. Don't touch it."

"Sorry for the delay, I couldn't find Willikins anywhere." Sybil re-entered the room, carrying a silver tea tray adorned with the paper-thin china cups Vimes was always embarrassed too be seen drinking out of.

"No trouble," Vetinari said faintly. Vimes could practically see him mentally appraising the tea tray and its contents.

"Now, you don't take anything in yours, correct, Havelock?" Sybil asked, pouring out three cups.

"No, nothing at all," he replied, accepting the cup from Sybil. When she turned her back he hastily fumbled a flask out of his pocket and pulled the cork out with his teeth. Vimes glared accusingly. Vetinari merely shrugged and poured a good helping of what Vimes was sure was rum into his tea. When Sybil turned back, the flask had long since been re-corked and hidden away in some pocket.

"So how have you been?" she asked. "Not in trouble, I hope."

"Oh, all sorts, of trouble," replied the pirate lightly, as though he were discussing a promotion of sorts. "No one's managed to catch me yet, though. And as of now I am not wanted in Ankh-Morpork, I believe."

"Actually, you are," Vimes said darkly. He could smell the rum and it was not putting him in a good mood. "I believe it was last January that you stole all valuables and goods off a Morporkian ship carrying some livestock."

"And rum," Vetinari added. "Lots of rum. Whole hold was practically stuffed with it." He took a gulp of rum with a twist of tea. "Well, regardless, I've been granted temporary reprieve."

"Reprieve?" Sybil asked, stirring some sugar into her own tea. "That's wonderful!"

"What did you do this time?" Vimes asked, scowling.

"Nothing," smirked Vetinari. "Lord Rust just needed something."

Sybil looked up, as coldly inquisitive as Vimes had ever seen her. "What is he up to?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a bit of a treasure hunt is all." Vetinari had since turned back to the statue with the ruby eyes. "What on the Disc _is this_?"

"Some old relic my great-grandfather brought back from Nafooi," explained Sybil. "No clue what it actually is. Now, no more changing the subject: what sort of treasure hunt?"

"He found a key and a map," Vetinari responded. "He needed a pirate to go get it for him."

"Oh, a very traditional treasure hunt, then," Sybil said, apparently excited. "Well, that should be fun, hm?"

"Never been to Slakki before," said Vetinari, sitting down in an enormous leather armchair, all valuables having been well inspected. "So in the very least it ought to be interesting."

"That's practically on the other side of the world," Vimes muttered. Then, louder, he asked, "How long is this going to take you?"

"Well, seeing as it's June now, by the time we get to the channel between the Counterweight Continent and the big continent it'll all be frozen over. And we'd probably have to wait in Ecalpon for at least three months before it thawed. So I'm thinking we'll head around the Counterweight Continent completely. Should get us there and back in, I don't know, nine months?"

"That's an awful long time to be at sea," Sybil said, worried. "Do be careful."

"Oh, we stop along the way," Vetinari said, secretly wishing Sybil would turn away again so he could add more rum to his cup. "The main problem with that route is that I'm very much wanted in Ting Ling."

"Well, then wouldn't it be safer to head widdershins and just go around Cape Terror?" Vimes asked, trying to pull up a map of the Discworld in his head.

"If there's one country that wants me more than Ting Ling it's Muntab," Vetinari said simply. "Turns out the king's virgins are strictly off-limits there," he said, wincing, as though recalling some horrible event, Vimes doubted it was that horrible if there were virgins involved.

Sybil sighed. "Well, Havelock, I just hope you're enjoying yourself. I can't say I agree with what you're doing, but as long as you're happy, I suppose it's all right."

"It has its moments," he replied, smiling faintly. Vimes wondered if he was still thinking about the virgins. Then, as though startled, he pulled out a very gold pocket watch. "Well, it seems I have to be going – the crew will need some directions or something." He pocketed the watch and set the cup down one the tray, visibly restraining himself from snatching the silver spoon lying by the sugar.

"Where'd you get the watch from?" Vimes asked sharply.

"Lord Rust," Vetinari replied carelessly. "The idiot keeps it in his sleeve, of all places. Well, he _used to_ keep it there."

Sybil covered her mouth with her hand, disguising a smile. Then she rose with the pirate and patted him on the shoulder in a motherly fashion. "Please don't do anything stupid, Havelock. I hope you find your treasure."

"I hope so too," he agreed. "Thanks for the tea."

"Just don't get killed," Vimes growled. "You know, in case Rust dies and the position opens up again."

Vetinari saluted lazily. "Will do, Commander. And now, I'm afraid I must be off. Good to see you both." And with that, he swaggered out of the room, shutting the door behind him. In the now-dark hallway, he paused, putting all his rings back on. "Be seeing you, Sam," he said, once he had finished. "Remember, the key to not being seen is not blending in, it's becoming the background." In the shadows, the young Assassin's jaw dropped as the pirate walked out.

--

Later that night, Sam Vimes was headed to the back door to have a quiet smoke out on the porch. In the hall he encountered his son. "Hello, Sam," he said, passing the boy by. "What are you up to?"

Young Sam jumped, and turned, looking startled and a little guilty. "Um, nothing. I was just headed down to the post office."

"Why?" the Commander asked, natural suspicion kicking in.

"We're, uh, out of stamps. And Jacque's birthday is later this week, so I want to get this letter in the mail as soon as possible." He smiled, trying very hard to be the picture of innocence. "Alright?"

His father sighed and pushed open the back door, looking out over the city. "Fine," he said. "See you in half an hour?"

"Oh, absolutely," the boy replied, pulling his dark cloak over his shoulder. "Be back before you know it."

Vimes nodded, and watched his son walk down the street, disappearing into the night.

--

End, Capitulo 1


	2. Who's in the what now?

--

The Bloody Great Boat – now fully stocked and prepared to travel to at least Hergen without stopping – eased out of the slip around one-thirty in the morning. The crew, though groggy, had known they would be leaving early, so many of them had decided to sleep onboard. They milled around the deck in a zombie-like state, pulling what ropes needed pulled, hoisting the appropriate sails and generally making sure their voyage got underway successfully. Vetinari leaned calmly on the helm all the while, easing the Boat out of the Ankh-Morpork harbor and into the Circle Sea.

Around three o'clock, when Vetinari decided the ship was safely clear of the harbor and all traffic associated therewith, he set the Boat on course towards the Brown Islands and ordered the sails to be furled back up. The ship would drift with the current while the crew slept. As soon as the sails were seen to, the crew descended back into the hold, determined to get some sleep before they started really moving in the morning.

Vetinari himself made sure first-mate Rufus Drumknott was prepared to take the first two-hour watch shift. After getting satisfactorily coherent answers out of the man, the captain retired to his cabin. Once inside, he closed the door, lit the lamp, and unfurled his old map of the Disc, way back from when he'd ruled Ankh-Morpork, complete with annotations.

He needed to chart a course to Slakki that would, ideally, take them nowhere close to waters where boats out of Ting Ling would be sailing. He was somewhat certain they would have a watch out for him, a large black boat and/or the crown jewels. Countries tended to be picky about that sort of theft.

He sat back from the map and frowned slightly. The problem, of course, was that any course steering them well clear of Ting Ling and their ship would take himself and his ship into waters considered too dangerous to sail by most sane people. Well. No one had accused him of being sane recently, so perhaps they would have to run a risk of going over. He scowled, cursing Rust for choosing such an inconvenient time to hire him out for a treasure hunt. He couldn't have waited until the Hubwards seas thawed, oh no. Had to do it now.

After quite some time staring at the map and scowling, Vetinari decided it was time to get some rum to help with the decision process. The stash in his trunk was gone, spent on women in Fourecks. He was somewhat certain there was as least a little rum and maybe some vodka in the hold, though, so he swaggered in that direction.

Despite his almost comical appearance most of the time, Havelock Vetinari was still one of the best Assassins on the Disc. No one could move quite like him, completely silent and invisible except to the most stringent observer. The lookout, who had long ago relieved Drumknott, didn't even look his direction.

He stalked through the crew's cabin and descended the narrow stairs to the belly of the ship. There were some animals down there, barrels of fresh water, salted meat and gunpowder and a crate or two of basic bread. There was also a rack along one wall, holding some very old vintages, a bottle of vodka from Uberwald and, most importantly, several large bottles and small barrels of rum. A good ship, Vetinari reasoned, needed at least a little alcohol to keep its crew moving.

As he was glancing through the rack he heard something from back in the darkness. He turned, glanced and dismissed the noise as a pig doing something or other that pigs do when on ships. Then, just as he was reaching out for a personal-sized bottle of rum, the ship tipped with the waves. Vetinari wasn't fazed in the slightest, but an unfortunate goat stumbled, fell over a pig, and knocked a barrel of water over. The barrel rolled across the floor and toward the far wall. It hit something that went "Aargh!"

Well, so much for the pig theory.

With a sigh, the captain pocketed the bottle of rum and strode across the hold, deftly dodging assorted livestock. He casually righted the barrel and faced the stowaway with an expression of utter exasperation. "Congratulations on making a bloody stupid decision," sighed.

"What?" Sam Vimes Jr. demanded. He tried to stand up, slipped on animal droppings, and fell back down. Vetinari snickered.

"Looks as though you've won a prize, as well. My, it's certainly turning out to be your night, isn't it?"

"You could help me up!"

"You are a stowaway on my ship," said Vetinari stiffly, turning and making to leave the hold. "I have no obligations to you whatsoever. You're lucky I haven't stabbed you."

"What?" Sam struggled to his feet, wiping goat doings from his black cloak. "Why would you do that?"

"Well, we can't exactly run down to the market if we run out of food," Vetinari sneered. "And we didn't plan for an extra person." Sam was about to open his mouth, presumably to whine or something, when Vetinari cut in. "However, since you are the only son of a woman I consider to be a friend, you will be allowed to live."

"Bloody well right I will!"

"You're going to earn your keep though," the captain continued. "Follow."

Sam sulked along behind, quite displeased with the way his whole plan was turning out. He'd imagined being discovered by some stupid crewman and welcomed as an educated young man, to help with planning and such. As it was, he'd simply been crowded into a damp hull with a bunch of livestock and discovered when a barrel nearly crushed him. And then he'd been insulted. Hardly what he'd read in his books.

He followed Vetinari, who was completely silent, up the stairs to the crew's deck and then upstairs again to the main deck. The ship was very dark, and almost eerie, with the late-night fog rolling around on the deck and the waves quietly lapping against the hull. The sails hug above them, ghostly white in the light of the moon.

Vetinari led Sam into the captain's cabin, closed the door and turned the key in the lock. He then sat calmly down in the navigator's chair and pulled the rum out of his pocket. Popping the cork off, he looked mildly at Sam. "Why?"

Sam was simply bewildered. He was unfortunate enough to have never had a one-on-one with Havelock Vetinari before. "What?"

"Why did you choose to stowaway on my ship?" He fixed Sam with the Stare. It still worked like a charm, especially on arrogant, confused teenaged boys.

"I want to be a pirate!" Sam declared, waving a hand. "I practically told you as much back home!"

"I didn't think you would be stupid enough to actually try it."

"Anyway, I do know all about pirates." Sam straightened up. "I've been taking nautical classes at the guild."

"Do your parents know where you are?" asked Vetinari, completely ignoring Sam's declarations of knowledge.

"What?" Sam looked annoyed that he had been derailed. "No, of course not. They never would have let me come."

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. Sam gulped a little, as the sudden realization that he'd made a very stupid decision indeed struck him.

"Well, my father knows I was going out."

"And how long does he think you'll be out for?"

"A half hour."

"Hmm." The captain sat back, smirking a little. "Sam, do you have any idea what were doing here?"

"Looking for treasure. You have a key and a map, don't you?"

"Of course," said Vetinari, waving a hand dismissively. "But Sam, I was wondering mainly if you know where aforementioned treasure is."

"I dunno, Slurki or something like that?" He turned his chin up slightly. "I _was_ listening outside the door, you know."

"Yes, I do remember." Vetinari closed his eyes and tilted his head back. "Do you know how far away from Ankh-Morpork Slakki is?"

"Yes, nine months round trip! I heard all that!"

"Nine months. Away from home, on a ship full of pirates. Nine months without decent food, drink, or lodgings. Nine months, Sam, at sea." Vetinari smiled inwardly. He'd been watching the boy's face turn grimmer and grimmer as he thought through all the ramifications of his decision for probably the first time. "Do you see the error in your decision-making process here?"

Sam cast his eyes downward, looking much smaller. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Vetinari stood up and walked over to the door. "What year did you say you'll be going into at the Guild?"

"Sixth year, sir. I'm a little young for my year."

The pirate paused, hand on the door handle. "So you'll have had anatomy and basic pathology and medicine now, yes?"

Sam looked bewildered. "I had that last semester."

"And you passed?"

"Of course I passed."

"Good," Vetinari said, suddenly all smiles. "I've always thought it would be nice to have a doctor on board. Other than me, of course. There should be an empty hammock down with the rest of the crew."

"Wait, what?" Sam's eyes had grown wide, and his jaw had gone somewhat slack. "You're not going to take me home?"

"Of course not, I don't have the time." Vetinari opened the door, gesturing widely that Sam should exit. "I'll send word to your mother that you're with me, of course, but if I were to take time to run all my stowaways home we'd never get anything done."

"But we're not even a day away from the city! It wouldn't even begin to cut into your journey time!" Sam was panicking now, desperately waving his arms and shouting. "I've seen the error in my ways!

"And that's all well and good, Sam, but in addition to admitting to your mistakes is that other part of life we call 'living with them'. So, off you get, early morning tomorrow." Vetinari gently pushed the boy out of his cabin and shut the door. Sam simply stood there, mouth open, eyes unseeing. The lookout spotted him and scurried down from the crow's nest.

"I don't think I recognize you," he said. He looked Sam up and down, critically taking the boy's appearance in with his one eye. The other eye was covered by a red patch. "You're not a stowaway, are you?" Sam was silent. The man sighed, and knocked on the captain's door.

"Captain, we've got a stowaway! He looks crazy!"

"I know!" came the muffled response from behind the door. "He's fine, just leave him!"

The lookout looked from the door, to Sam, to the door, and back to Sam. Then he shrugged. "He probably won't kill you," he said, trying to be comforting. Then he patted the boy on the back and returned to his post.

After what seemed like forever to Young Sam, he finally came out of shock enough to squeak "Oh gods," before collapsing onto the deck.

--

Commander Vimes had been suspicious when Sam had left, but now that he'd been gone for over an hour, the Commander was somewhat frantic. Unsure of whether or not a missing persons search at this point would be premature (he had been a Watch officer long enough to learn that sometimes parents overreacted to say, a child simply going out to play with a friend without telling anyone) he tried to walk calmly upstairs to ask his wife. He was trying to be calm, mainly because he didn't want to upset her. She always had been very protective of both Sams.

As soon as he walked into their bedroom, however, Sybil sat up. "What's the matter, dear?"

"Er," said Vimes._How did she always know_? "Er, it's Sam dear. He left and, erm, hasn't returned."

Sybil sighed and closed her book, getting out of bed and putting on a nightgown. "Did you check his room?"

"No, I've been waiting outside. He said he was going to the post office."

Sybil merely strode down the hall, husband tailing along like a lost puppy. He couldn't fathom why she wasn't more worried. Once they arrived at their son's room, she knocked. There was no response.

"I'm certain he's not there," Vimes said. "I would've heard him come in and he knows better than to try the downspout."

Sybil merely pushed open the door, revealing the boy's empty room. The window was open to let in the summer air, but the curtains weren't waving ominously. They simply hung there, dark and lonely in the room. The bed was made, but not undisturbed. Books littered its surface. Sybil walked into the room and picked one up. She leafed through it, and sighed heavily.

"I rather thought this might happen," she said.

"What?" Vimes asked, confused. "Sybil I'm not sure bemoaning an untidy room is the proper reaction. Should I head down to the Yard?"

Sybil tossed the book to her husband, who caught it, fumbling slightly in the dark room. The cover had a skull and crossbones on it, and the title ready_Piracy in the Circle Sea and Beyond_. "Oh," said Vimes.

"I suspect Havelock will be discovering a possibly unwelcome guest on his ship at some point." Sybil looked through the other books, expression unreadable.

"Well, he'll bring him back, won't he?" Vimes laid the book back on the bed, looking at the other books. All dealt with piracy or pirates in one way or another.

"Doubtful," his wife responded. "He'll probably make Sam learn from the whole thing." She looked discontent. Vimes sat down next to her. "I do wish he weren't so rash about these decisions."

"Well we have to go get him," the Commander said, squaring his shoulders. "It's not safe for a boy his age out there. I'm going to the Yard."

"No, Sam," Sybil laid her hand atop his. "Let him go." She sighed, looking at the other books on the bed. "He needs to learn from this, as much as I don't like the idea. And I know Havelock; he'll do whatever he can to get Sam back to us in one piece."

"So why doesn't the bloody idiot just turn around?!"

Sybil smiled. "We can't protect him forever. I'm sure you knew that."

Vimes faltered. "Well – Well, yes, but fifteen? He's not even full-grown yet!"

Sybil squeezed his hand. "Of course he's too young. But, well, he's got Havelock with him. And Drumknott, too. I don't like the idea of him running off like this, but perhaps it's for the best."

"Aren't you worried?" Vimes was mystified. He'd known Sybil to be a remarkable woman, a rock to weather any storm, but she was so perfectly calm right now, and their son had just run off with a pirate crew.

"Of course I'm worried," she said. "Worried sick. But I think he needs this. And I trust Havelock enough not to push him too far." She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her dressing gown. "I do hope he writes, though."

"Well perhaps I should tell the Yard anyhow," Vimes said, gingerly putting an arm around her shoulders. "I mean, he might not have gone with Vetinari, or he might be on the wrong ship, or something. I mean, it's not going to hurt if they know."

"No, Sam," Sybil said, suddenly firm. "No official reports. No write-ups. Tell Carrot, and Angua and the others you trust. No one else. The last thing we need is Rust getting hold of this. He'll kill Havelock."

"I thought Vetinari was working for him?"

"He is," said Sybil, picking a book up. "But you know how Ron is; he hates Havelock, and if he could even twist anything enough to get evidence to execute Havelock officially, he would be all over it."

"You can't tell me he doesn't have enough now with all the piracy and that?"

"Not enough to make it worth it, in Ron's eyes. He doesn't want Havelock in prison, he just wants him dead. I rather suspect that's why he sent Havelock on this mission now."

"What do you mean?"

"He's wanted in both Ting Ling and Muntab, and to finish this commission as quickly as possible, Havelock's going to have to pass either one of them. I think Rust is hoping he'll get caught and killed."

"Isn't that dangerous for Sam?"

"That's why I'm glad Drumknott's there as well." Sybil sighed again and rose. "We need to trust Havelock, I suppose. He's certainly clever enough."

"But he's kind of crazy and an alcoholic," Vimes said, following her back to their bedroom. "I'm not sure he's really the same Vetinari anymore. The Patrician's gone."

Sybil smiled thinly, opening the door. "I'm glad, really. I noticed while he was here that he's put that aside."

"Glad? Why?"

"He's allowing himself to have emotions," she said. "That's why I'm not out there on a ship right now after Sam."

Vimes thought for a moment, and then nodded. He would tell Carrot and Fred and the others, of course, but all things considered, it wasn't so bad. And maybe Sam would learn a thing or two from the old bastard.

--

**Author's Note:** Now, all of you know that I am not one to beg and plead and scrounge for reviews. But. 72 hits on the first chapter. Zero reviews.

Seriously?

I mean, seriously?

Even if you hated it, you couldn't work up one little flame?

You have disappointed me, intarwebz. I am committing to posting one more chapter following this. If that goes review-less, the story is taken down and will be finished for me and me alone to read. No use clogging up space if no one's reading it. shrug


	3. Tengo vomitar, mon capitan

Admiral James Selachii was, to the very core, a navy man. His whites were always immaculately cleaned, his coat pressed to almost oak-like stiffness, and his shoes polished to a point a which innocent bystanders were in danger of being blinded if he happened to pass during noontime. Currently, he was standing at ramrod-straight attention in front of Lord Rust's desk. The Patrician was secretly glad he didn't have to see the man's shoes; he could hardly stand to look at his reflection in the shiny black leather.

"At ease, Admiral," Rust said, clasping his hands and resting them atop a pile of paperwork. Selachii merely stopped saluting. The Patrician sighed inwardly. "Thank you for attending, Admiral."

"Always the utmost of pleasures," the man responded, just as stiffly as he stood.

"I'm sure," muttered Rust, almost totally inaudibly, making sure the other man couldn't even see his mouth by pretending to examine a document. "I'm afraid I don't recall – did the memo I sent you specify as to why I asked you to come by this afternoon?"

"No, sir."

"Ah, well, good, because I'd rather hoped to explain that in person." Rust was still rather upset with his head clerk, who had a bad habit of almost being entirely too forthcoming with information in the Patrician's memos. Rust had had a word with the boy several times already and frankly couldn't imagine why Vetinari had kept him around in the first place. Slowly, the Patrician sat back and looked to the ceiling.

"About how many ships do we have in the harbor at this moment, Admiral?"

"Three, sir."

"Aha. And what sorts of ships are they?"

Without even pausing, the Admiral fired off an impressively succinct reply. "A large destroyer-type ship, a small ship for reconnaissance, and a slightly larger ship for patrolling."

"And which would you say is that fastest of the three?"

"The patrol ship, sir, by far. She's the fastest in the navy, sir."

The Patrician smiled widely, chins wobbling. "Excellent. You see, Admiral, we have somewhat of a piracy problem."

"Yes, sir."

Rust scowled, annoyed at the man's lack of expression. Vetinari had been known to make stronger men than the admiral break down into hysterical tears, on occasion. Rust had never been able to figure out how he did that.

"Two days ago, Admiral, I made somewhat of a rash decision. I received a key to a treasure of, I believe, some value. I did not have any clerks research the item, as I should have. Due to this gross oversight on my part, I hired a man of . . . somewhat ill repute to go and retrieve said treasure. Tell me, Admiral, have you ever heard of or had an encounter with Havelock Vetinari?"

"I heard of his time as Patrician sir, and that he was a brilliant politician but a despicable man." Here, the Admiral won points with Rust, who had a hard time controlling his grin. Rust firmly believed he was a much better politician than Vetinari, despite all evidence to the contrary. "As a pirate sir, he is no less despicable but also, I have heard, masterful at what he does and infinitely clever."

"Good; we're talking about the same person, then," Rust said, feeling somewhat uncomfortable about the Admiral's almost, well, _praises_ of Vetinari's pirating reputation. "Anyway, Admiral, I hired Vetinari to go and retrieve whatever the key granted admittance to. In our agreement he made several terms that I was somewhat suspicious of. I should have thrown him out right then, but I agreed to his terms.

"The next morning, one of my clerks reported back to me with more information on the key that I had been given. It turns out this key grants admittance to a_very valuable_ treasure indeed, and that I would never see the half of it. Naturally, I want the key back and would rather have the key in the possession of someone I trust."

"Understood, sir."

The Patrician smiled. "Very good. I will be willing to give you and your men a percentage of the treasure upon your successful return, of course."

"Yes, sir."

"You will, however, have to first catch Vetinari to find the key, seeing as he has it in his possession." Here, the Patrician smiled thinly and cruelly. "As it so happens, the same Vetinari with our key is very much wanted in the country of Ting Ling. I think it would be marvelous for foreign relations if Ankh-Morpork were to help a fellow nation out and return to them a dangerous criminal, yes?"

The admiral's expression did not flicker. "Sir, yes sir."

"So perhaps once you've apprehended him, it would be nice if you would, I don't know, drop him off in their capital."

"Yes sir."

"Good man!" exclaimed Rust, slapping his desk. "Very good, then. Please make sail at your earliest convenience. "I shall expect you back when?"

"Most probably nine months, sir," the admiral replied stiffly. "At the very outside, barring complete disaster, fourteen months."

Rust rose and extended his hand to Selachii, who shook with the same frozen formality as he had maintained throughout the meeting. "Most satisfactory," Rust said happily. "An excellent agreement on all sides, I would say. And now, I think, you would like some details on the key you are looking for?"

"Yes, sir."

"Most likely Vetinari will have it on his person," Rust said. "I'm sure you've heard of it, being a nautical man. Does the Black Iron Key ring any bells?"

The admiral's eyes flickered, ever so slightly. "I have heard of it, sir."

"Yes, well, it's supposed to be cursed or something." He laughed. "Perhaps the curse will take care of Vetinari before you can!"

"Nothing more than superstition, my lord. I am sure I will be able to apprehend both the pirate and the key without trouble." The admiral's face had reassumed its same rigid expression.

"I certainly hope so," Rust said, sitting down in his chair and leaning back. "Thank you for this lovely visit, admiral. I'm sure you have many things to get ready; please don't let me keep you."

"Sir, yes sir." And with that the admiral saluted, turned on his heel and marched out of the room with military precision.

--

Havelock Vetinari was at the helm of his ship, thinking. Not particularly deeply or anything, just sort of letting his train of thought go where it may. At the moment, he was wondering if he really should have kept Young Sam on the boat. After all, he was only a kid, really, and Ankh-Morpork wasn't all _that_ far away. Plus, the sound of him being sick over the side was really starting to bother the captain, despite his best efforts to ignore the boy.

As Vetinari was examining his compass, making small adjustments to their bearing, he heard footsteps on the wooden stairs leading up to the helm. It was Drumknott, he knew. Four years of pirating hadn't broken the man of his tentative, efficient little walk. Vetinari was rather impressed by that, actually, considering that he himself had lost his ability to manage a straight line some time ago.

"Something wrong?" the captain asked, snapping the compass shut and looking up. Drumknott sighed and pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. His appearance had always amused Vetinari – no matter what, the man always looked, well, clerky. Even with the long hair and ratty old clothes, he still looked like he could happily organize files all day.

"It's Young Sam, sir," Drumknott said, rubbing the back of his neck. "He's been vomiting since he woke up."

"Yes, I noticed that."

"The men are getting a bit . . . tired of it, sir." Drumknott looked over his shoulder to the main deck, where the crew was organizing ropes and mending things. The he moved next to the captain, saying in a low voice, "I'm afraid they might do something unkind."

"Unkind?" Vetinari asked, looking askance at his former head clerk. "Them? Hardly, Drumknott."

"Yes, well, all the same. Sir, it can't possibly be good for him to be vomiting continuously like that."

"Not my problem. _He's_ the one that stowed away on _my_ ship." He caught Drumknott's expression out of the corner of his eye and sighed, opening the compass again and squinting at it. "Fine. Take him below deck. Did we ever get that crate of lemons?"

"Yes, sir," Drumknott replied swiftly. Years of working with the former politician had taught him how to switch subjects seamlessly and quickly, without so much as blinking. He also knew the lemon question was going to be at least a little pertinent, because Vetinari hardly bothered with thinking on more than a maximum of three levels these days.

"Good, give him a lemon to suck on or something. Get some nutrients of some variety into him. Once he seems better, let the crew at him."

"Sir?"

"Well he's the ship's doctor now, isn't he? I said so, of course he is. I'm sure someone has a medical complaint of some variety." Vetinari scowled at the horizon, glared at his compass, and spun the wheel a half-turn. "Damn crosswinds."

"Yes, sir. Just this morning, Josiah was complaining to me about how much his corns are troubling him."

Vetinari wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out with a slight hacking noise. "That's disgusting, Drumknott."

"Yes, sir."

"Let Sam look at him first, will you? Start him off easy."

"Yes, sir." Drumknott strode off, back down to the deck. Vetinari watched him take Young Sam by the arm and usher the wobbly-legged boy below deck. The rest of the crew watched them go, and then turned to Vetinari. The captain was, conveniently, examining a crumpled map he'd pulled out of his pocket. The crew then looked to one another.

Shortly thereafter, Vetinari heard another set of footsteps on the stairs. He looked up to see Bart Smythling, the former youngest member of the crew. Bart nodded amiably to the captain, shoved his hands into his pockets and started to rock gently back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"I'm sure you have something to do, Smythling," Vetinari said, pulling a stub of a pencil out from behind his ear and making a note on the crumpled old map.

"Actually, I have a bit of a question for you from the crew, captain." Bart was always a very relaxed young man, even in Vetinari's presence. Of course, he had no memories of the captain before he turned pirate, so that might have explained some things. But even so, Vetinari was not a particularly friendly person and had a slight habit of making people uncomfortable, even when he wasn't trying to.

"Speak your mind, Bart," Vetinari said, looking up briefly from his map.

"We were just sort of wondering what kind of voyage we're on right now," he said. "I mean, no boarding, no plundering, no stopping at little islands because someone has a good feeling about it? Do we actually have a destination, captain?"

"Indeed, Bart," said Vetinari, turning back to his map. "We happen to be operating on a commission from the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork."

"Really?" The young man looked surprised. "I thought he didn't much like you, sir."

"He still doesn't."

"So why did he hire you?"

Vetinari sighed and looked up at the young man. "Because, Bart, Lord Rust is an idiot."

Bart laughed. "So what kind of mission did he trust you with?"

"Secret government things, Bart. Don't worry: you'll be compensated justly."

"So long as we're getting paid, boss."

"Don't worry about that," said Vetinari distantly. He had the map and compass out now, and was scowling horribly. "Bart, aren't there some ropes that need to be coiled or something? The winds are getting a little . . . complicated."

"Sure, captain." Bart nodded to Vetinari, who was in his own personal world of frustration. He retreated back to the deck, where Josiah joined up with him.

"We're working for the government," Bart whispered proudly. "Very legitimate and all that."

"I thought Captain was on bad terms with Ankh-Morpork?"

"Well, you know Lord Rust," said Bart, waving a hand. "Anyway, Captain says we'll be compensated justly, so I'm thinking this is a pretty sweet job."

"He always compensates us, Bart."

"Right, well, he wouldn't tell me what we're doing, so that's a good sign, I think. Some kind of secret, must be pretty big stuff, eh?"

Josiah sighed and threw a coil of rope over his shoulder. "Bart, you don't remember him when he was Patrician, but trust me, keeping secrets is an indication of nothing. Could you help me with this rope? My corns are troubling me something awful."

--

Young Sam was somewhat relieved when Drumknott took him below deck. His stomach seemed to settle once he couldn't see the ocean rocking anymore. Drumknott had also given him a quarter of a lemon and told him to suck on it for a while. It did seem to help, despite the horrible taste. Drumknott himself had left a few minutes ago, leaving Sam alone in the dark crew's quarters.

He felt, above all things, stupid. What had he been thinking, sneaking off like that? First of all, he should have made sure he wouldn't get seasick before getting on a boat. Secondly, he felt ridiculous for even thinking for a moment that Vetinari would be anything but cold and distant toward him. The man was, after all, completely insane.

Most of all, he felt as though he should have looked more seriously at the amount of time he would be away from home. While he and his parents did have the normal amount of tiffs, all in all they weren't on terrible terms. He also missed the luxuries of the high life. But now he was practically stranded away from home, without his bed, proper lavatories, or his parents. He felt very alone, very uncomfortable, and somewhat afraid.

He was sitting on an overturned bucket, slouching back against the hull of the ship, when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He looked up, expecting Drumknott, and was surprised to see instead one of the grizzled, elderly crewmembers. The man made his way over, sat down in the hammock directly across from Sam, and began removing his boots.

"Er, something the matter?" Sam hazarded after a while, nervously fingering his lemon rind.

"I've got corns on me feet," the man said, without any other sort of introduction. "You're the doctor, right?"

"Um," said Sam. He didn't really know what to say. He certainly didn't want to look at this man's feet. "I guess," he mumbled, after a while.

"Well, what should I do?" the man asked, displaying a foot. Sam gagged a little, but managed to conceal it fairly well. "They're rather painful."

"Er," he said, mind racing and stomach churning. "That is . . . Well." Truth was, he didn't really know. He'd had the basics at the Guild, obviously, but most of that dealt with a person's insides. Corns had not been part of the subject material covered.

"Here now, the Captain said you were a doctor," the man said suspiciously. "You're not much good if you aren't. I would even say you're totally worthless and a stowaway. Yes?"

"No!" Sam said quickly. "I mean, I've had medical training. Just, er, give me a minute to think."

He thought. Nothing approaching this sort of thing had been covered at the Guild but, well . . . His father _was_ a watchman. Watchmen were on their feet almost all day, every day, and it was completely normal for foot problems to develop. Mind racing, he tried desperately to think of any instance at all where someone had had trouble with corns . . .

Ah, yes. Poor Constable Ping, last summer. Now, what had he done? It had been something strange, Sam remembered. It must have been, for him to hear about it. Something to do with soaking in something. He swallowed nervously and licked his lips. Then it came to him.

"Soak your feet in tea," he said suddenly. "Really, really watery warm tea." He smiled, despite the man's incredulous stare.

"_Tea_?"

"Yeah, tea," confirmed Sam. "And stretch your shoes out."

"Boy, do you have any idea how hard it is to get a hold of tea on a ship?"

"Well . . ." Sam paused. He hadn't thought of the limitations of living on a ship, and felt rather silly for it. Of course tea was something of a commodity – it wasn't as if they could go and buy more. He licked his lips again and thought. The ship rocked.

"I guess warm salt water might work," he said at length. "It wouldn't be the same, obviously, but it would probably work alright."

"Well, no shortage of_that_," the man said gruffly. "And what's wrong with me boots?"

"They're too tight," Sam said, shrugging. "They should be wider. So there's no pressure on your . . . feet."

"Wider, hm?" The man gave Sam a skeptical glance as he pulled his boots on. "We'll see, boy." He stood and walked over to the stairs, pausing at the bottom step. "How do you know the captain?"

"Sorry?" Sam asked, sitting up a little straighter. He had sagged back against the hull in relief when the man had turned to leave. "Oh, um, he's friends with my parents, I think. Something like that. Why?"

The man shrugged. "Just curious as to why you're still here." He made his way up the stairs, pausing again once he was halfway up. "Oh, and Mr. Drumknott says you're to come up on deck as soon as you can." He smiled in a way that was not very nice at all. "Have to get you used to the sea."

--

Night fell. Once the sun set completely, Vetinari sent everyone but Sam down into the hull, where Drumknott would establish a lookout rota. Sam was sent to the crows' nest with a bucket (he still hadn't got the hang of actually looking at the ocean yet). Vetinari himself went to his cabin. He wanted to try to copy out the map on the grubby piece of cloth, just in case.

It was proving difficult. Whenever he tried to look and draw at the same time, the picture seemed to flit right off the surface of the linen, despite the candlelight. He ended up folding the cloth up in frustration and using another map as a guide to drawing the chain of islands the treasure was supposedly on.

Absently, he reached for the bottle of rum on the table. He grabbed the neck of the bottle and quickly withdrew his hand, as if he'd been burned. It was quite the opposite, really. Ice crystals had formed on the outside of the bottle, and little icebergs were bumping around in the liquid inside.

Very deliberately, as though totally unfazed by the abnormal temperature change, he laid his pen aside. He pocketed the map and then, with only a slight sigh, swiveled around to face the previously empty cabin.

HELLO.

"Yes, I thought it might be you," Vetinari replied, pushing his hat back and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why, pray, are you on my ship?" He looked up, eyes narrowed and an unnervingly inquisitive expression on his face. Havelock Vetinari was back, in full form.

YOU KNOW WHY I AM HERE, HAVELOCK VETINARI.

Vetinari gave Death a quizzical look, eyebrow raised. He pulled a watch from his pocket – a massive thing, made of what appeared to be iron. It only had one hand. Vetinari examined it for a moment, listened to it and made sure it was working, and looked at it again. Then he turned back to the reaper, who was leaning on his scythe.

"I'm afraid I don't know why you're here," Vetinari said at last. He dangled the watch by its chain. "Little early, aren't you?"

I CAME TO REMIND YOU.

"Well, that was very nice of you, though I would like to point out that I am not likely to forget my business with you."

YOU HAVE TWELVE MONTHS LEFT.

And here Vetinari re-checked the watch, somewhat more urgently. He shook it slightly. He frowned. "Three years," he muttered. "I ought to have three more years."

I THINK THAT THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Death's blue eyes glowed slightly, and he appeared to frown. YOU DO REMEMBER THE INITIAL TERMS OF OUR BARGAIN?

"Yes," Vetinari snapped irritably, turning back around to the table and pushing maps aside in search of something. "Again, not something I'm likely to forget. Forty years from that moment."

Death nodded. BUT YOU REMEMBER THE CONDITION ON NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES, YES?

Vetinari froze. Then, slowly, he turned. "There was no condition on near-death experiences."

YES, I RATHER THINK THERE WERE. SIX MONTHS DEDUCTED FROM THE TOTAL FOR EVERY NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, the Reaper recited, as though reading from a piece of paper plastered inside his skull. Which he may have been. Vetinari tried not to think about it.

"I don't remember that!" the captain protested. Nervously, he got up and started digging through a trunk on the floor. He pulled out _Anecdotes of the Great Accountants, Vol. 3_ and hastily started flipping through it.

YOU HAD JUST, FOR ALL POINTS AND PURPOSES, DIED. A SLIGHT LAPSE IN MEMORY IS CERTAINLY UNDERSTANDABLE.

Vetinari pulled a sheet of paper from between two pages, one of which had an orange tiger painted on it. He hastily read the neat gothic print on the page. Then he scowled up at the reaper, getting to his feet. "I don't think I've had _four_ near-death experiences," he said, waving the piece of paper at the skeleton.

IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU HAVE.

Vetinari rolled his eyes. "The arsenic and the gonne. That was _it_. And that is only two, if you'll note."

THERE WAS ALSO, Death said slowly, THE INCIDENT WITH MISTERS PIN AND TULIP –

"I didn't die there! I was unconscious!"

I THINK NOT. CLINICALLY, YOU DIED. IGOR WAS QUITE SURPRISED WHEN YOU WOKE UP.

Vetinari scowled. "Fine. But that's still only three."

AND THERE WAS THE WINTER IN UBERWALD.

The room temperature seemed to drop, and this time it wasn't due to Death's presence.

"I forgot about that," Vetinari said quietly, after a while. He shifted uncomfortably, looking at the floor. Then it was gone, and he looked back at Death, expression closed, cold. "I want more time."

AS WOULD MANY OTHERS, I'D IMAGINE.

"I can play for it again, yes?"

I'M AFRAID NOT.

Vetinari glared. "I'm_sure_ that wasn't in our deal."

Death shrugged. IT WASN'T. IT'S JUST ONE OF THE RULES.

"I should have asked for more time," Vetinari said, rubbing the back of his neck absent-mindedly.

THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN QUITE IMPOSSIBLE.

"What? Why?"

YOUR HAND WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BARGAIN MORE THAN FORTY YEARS.

"But I _beat Death_!"

AT A CARD GAME, YES. NO ONE DEFEATS ME FOREVER. I AM SORRY. He didn't sound like it. He didn't sound like he felt anything.

Vetinari made his way back across the cabin and almost collapsed into his chair. He slumped back and stared into space. Then, slowly, he pulled the watch out of his pocket. When he did so, the chain caught the edge of the Key, and it fell to the floor with a dull thud. Vetinari ignored it. Operating purely mechanically, with little to no thought at all, he wound the hand ahead, slowly. "Twelve months," he said softly. "Well."

INDEED. Death looked to the Key, lying unnoticed on the floor. The blue light in his eye sockets flickered. THE BLACK IRON KEY?

"Hm?" Vetinari asked distantly. Then, looking to the key and scooping it up, he nodded. "Yes. I'm supposed to find the treasure or something."

THEY SAY THE TREASURE IS CURSED.

Vetinari looked at the Key in the dim candlelight, and smiled sadly. "Happily, I don't think that presents a problem anymore."

--

End, Chapter 3

A/n: Lewl, indeed and verily. Cause you all have to wait and I know how it ends hahahahahaha.

Reviews make me happy, please take that into consideration.


	4. I AM RESPONSIBLE, NO RLY

Young Sam looked out across the dark sea. He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be looking out for, but Drumknott had assured him that he would know when he saw it. With a sigh he leaned against the railing of the crows' nest and rested his chin in his hand. Overhead, the full moon shone brightly.

On deck, there was a stirring. The fog that lay thick across the deck stirred, almost imperceptibly, though there was nothing to move it. Sam was quite sure of this – he looked long and hard, trying to discern whether or not anyone was down there. He fought off a shiver, though he didn't quite know why; the night was certainly warm enough. A breeze ruffled his hair and he exhaled deeply though his nose.

Pirating was turning out to be quite disappointing. First there was the seasickness, which seemed to have passed, thank the gods. Then there was the . . . the ocean. It was big, blue and wet(1). And, apparently, totally devoid of other human life. He'd pictured thrilling battles on the high seas, endless adventure and peril and . . . there wasn't any. There was just the sea, and sailing on it. And sailing, Sam was discovering, was hard work.

He was still slumped over the railing, passively watching out for enemy ships (or anything that might be more interesting than the occasional whale) when he heard a very slight creak that was different – more metallic – than the creaks the Boat normally made. He looked quickly down to the deck and saw the door to the captain's cabin swinging shut. Sam squinted and, through the fog and the dark, barely made out the shape of Vetinari pulling the door closed. Sam watched as the man walked to the edge of the ship and leaned on the railing. He didn't move for quite some time. Sam, bored and curious besides, abandoned the crows' nest. He climbed down the rope ladder to the deck and made his way over to the captain as quietly as he could. Nevertheless, Vetinari heard him from the moment he'd started moving down the ladder, and didn't even look twice when Sam moved next to him.

"You should be up above," Vetinari said neutrally, taking a sip of rum.

"There's nothing out there," Sam replied, turning his chin up just a little. "I checked." When Vetinari didn't say anything to this, Sam decided to plow on. "Why did you keep me on here?"

"I couldn't spare the time to take you back," Vetinari said automatically, without any emotion. Sam scowled.

"That's not true," he said firmly. "You could have gone back. Or you could have pulled into shore somewhere and let me off to find my own way back. But you're not going to. Why?"

Vetinari sighed. "We're stopping in Hergen. You want off, you get off there."

"That's not the answer to my question!"

"That's the answer you're going to get." Sam stopped dead in his tracks. Well. That certainly settled that then. He opened his mouth once or twice, as if trying to come back with something, but stopped. Just as he was getting ready to head back to the crows' nest, Vetinari spoke.

"Besides, your mother would kill me if I dropped you off on some beach somewhere and left you on your own."

Sam paused, scowling. "I can take care of myself," he said stiffly. "I don't need a babysitter anymore."

"Hm." Vetinari didn't say anything for a moment, and leaned on the rail, drinking his rum. "And what better place to learn if your suspicions are right than on this ship?"

"What?" Sam stopped and turned, expression confused. Vetinari turned to face him and shrugged.

"You say you don't need a babysitter anymore. Fine, everyone hits that point at some time in their lives." He took a drink of rum. "But the thing is, everyone starts _saying_ that long before they're correct."

"I've been saying it since I was thirteen," Sam muttered sullenly.

Vetinari shrugged. "That's immaterial. Some people talk more than others. There's no better place to learn whether or not you need someone to look after you than on a boat, though."

"Why?"

"Because you get left to do what needs to be done, without help," Vetinari smirked. "End of story. This is your chance, Sam, to prove yourself."

For some reason that made Sam nervous. Suddenly he felt a lot more pressure to do things right, to get things right. If life is like a trapeze act, Vetinari had just removed his metaphorical safety net. He swallowed, feeling much, much smaller but then stood up as straight as he could manage without falling over on the gently rocking deck.

"Well fine then," he said as firmly as he could manage. "I will." Vetinari snickered a little and turned back to the ocean. Absently, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick iron watch. He looked at it for a while, apparently oblivious to Sam's continued presence. The boy was just about to the ladder when he heard a soft, quickly stifled yelp. He spun around to see Vetinari standing at the railing, holding his left hand clenched in his right in the universal "oh gods it hurts" position.

Sam walked over cautiously. "Are you alright?" he hazarded.

Vetinari nodded quickly. "Just fine," he managed. "Go away now." Sam saw blood trickling out between the man's fingers. He raised his eyebrows.

"You're sure?"

"_Go away_," Vetinari snarled. Sam, taken aback and more than a little frightened scampered to the ladder and back to the crows' nest in what might have been record time. He watched as Vetinari, still holding his hand, walked back to his cabin and shut the door. There was as small trail of blood on the deck.

Sam watched the blood for a while, trying to think of what might have caused such a thing. Splinter? His own knife, maybe? And then the rain started and washed the blood away. Sam took his coat off, sat down in the crows' nest and made a makeshift tent for himself, glaring out over the ocean.

Oh, the adventure of the high seas.

--

The next morning Sam emerged on deck groggy and bleary-eyed, chunk of bread that was serving as breakfast in hand. The sun had barely risen over the horizon, and yet the entire crew was up and about, making ready for another day's sail. Drumknott saw him and strode over efficiently. "Wake up," he said. "You're in the crows' nest."

"_Again_?"

Drumknott raised his eyebrows. "Would you rather clean the hold?"

Sam backtracked quickly. "Er, no. Crows' nest will be fine."

"That's what I thought." Drumknott turned away just as Vetinari slid out of his quarters. He bowed. "Morning, sir."

"Hm?" Vetinari turned to the man, looking a little startled. "Oh. Morning. Yes, it certainly is that."

Sam was puzzled, but didn't want to hang around and look like he was listening in. Instead he made his way over to the rope ladder, trying to focus on what Vetinari and Drumknott were saying.

"We're going to need to change our bearings Hubwards a little," Vetinari was saying. "I was thinking we might be able to skip the stop at Hergen and get all the way to the port in be Trobi but it doesn't look like it."

"No sir?"

"The winds aren't with us, it would seem. Judging on the season and our bearing we're going to be moving slower than normal." As he headed to the helm and Sam reached the crows' nest, Sam noticed Vetinari hadn't taken his left hand out of his pocket the entire time. "Which is fine; we'll just stop at Hergen and really stock up to make it around Ting Ling."

"Yes sir," Drumknott said, nodding. "Shall I inform the crew of the new bearings?"

"Obviously," Vetinari muttered distractedly, pulling a map out of his right pocket and opening it on the helm.

"Sir?" Drumknott asked cautiously. "Er, is your hand all right?"

Sam stopped breathing, straining to hear what was being said. Vetinari just gave the first mate a blank look. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Drumknott gave Vetinari a significant look but didn't say anything. Vetinari rolled his eyes and pulled his left hand out of his pocket. Sam noticed he was wearing a glove on it. He wiggled his fingers. "It's fine," Vetinari said evenly. "Thank you for worrying."

Drumknott shrugged. "I was just wondering."

"Very good. Now go wonder about someone else," Vetinari smirked. Drumknott sighed, though he was smirking a little too, and wandered off to the hold, presumably to check on the cleaning crew down there. Sam watched Vetinari for a minute.

Aside from the glove his hand _seemed_ fine. But the more Sam watched, the more he noticed that Vetinari was using it sparingly, and any movement he might have had in it was stiff and slight. Sam wondered if he should do something about it, as the doctor on board, until he realized that Vetinari himself was a doctor and he probably had seen to it himself.

_He must have cut himself_, Sam decided. _Probably just stiff because of the stitches or something._

And that, he decided, was all the thought he was willing to give to the matter.

--

(1)_Anywhere the wind is blowing/ Hoist the sails and sing/ Sailing for adventure on the big, blue wet thing_(2).

(2)You honestly thought I would get through this without at least one Muppet reference? Seriously?

A/N: Yeah it's short but whatever, deal with it, right? New chapters are underway, obviously, but it's mad hard to write and watch _The Soup_ at the same time.


	5. Let's play pretend! Or something similar

Author's Notes: Hey guys, I really appreciate the number of hits and favorites this story has been getting but really, I would love to get reviews in lieu of favorites, if it has to be one of the two:D Feedback is not only crazy welcome, but highly appreciated.

--

Three days after Admiral Selachii and Lord Rust met in the Rat's Chamber, Admiral Selachii and his crew aboard _AMS Integer_ (there had been a messy misspelling in the shipyard) sailed out of the harbor at Ankh-Morpork. Selachii was at the helm, supervising as the first mate, Kevin Pender, steered. Once they were clear of the docks, Kevin consulted his map and compass and pointed the ship on course for the channel leading out of the Circle Sea and into the open ocean. As he made a note on his map, he looked to Selachii, who was watching the crew with a thoughtful expression.

"Sir?" Kevin hazarded. "If I may be so bold, could you tell me our bearings so that I may better plan a course?"

Selachii nodded. "We'll be sailing for Hergen, Kevin. As quickly as possible."

"Sir?" Kevin made a light pencil sketch across the map and stood up, looking to the map quizzically. "Sir I'm not aware of an conflict with Hergen, as it is. I mean, Port Rana is a despicable place, of course. Are we culling pirate activity?"

Selachii smirked as he watched the crew make the ship ready to run. "You could say that, I suppose. More accurately, however, I'd say we're on a bit of a treasure hunt."

Pender paused. "Er, that's exciting, Admiral." Selachii nodded.

"Indeed. The ship we're after, Pender, is fast but we can outrun them. I intend to beat them to Port Rana and intercept them in the town." He looked to the first mate. "Is that clear?"

"Yes sir," Kevin said. "We'll want to stay relatively close to the shoreline then, to pick up on the winds coming across from the Edge. Should get us there in, say, three weeks?"

"Very good, Pender. Three weeks should be adequate."

"And er, what ship should we be looking out for?" Kevin asked quickly. "Just in case we should come across them in the open sea, if they've had the same ideas."

"I highly doubt it," Selachii sighed, almost sounding bored. "No doubt their captain wanted to make a run for the be Trobi islands, where they would be much less conspicuous. The winds, however, are not to their favor this time of year, should they follow that plan."

"You'd be right there sir," Kevin agreed. "Seas get awfully dead out in that area in the summer."

"Exactly." Selachii seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then continued. "The ship we are intercepting is commonly known as The Boat, Pender."

"The Boat?" Kevin looked surprised. "We're going after Havelock Vetinari and his crew?"

"Yes, we are," Selachii said smoothly.

"Isn't he rather . . . cunning, sir?" Kevin wilted a little under Selachii's stare. "I mean, he's evaded all sorts of navies from all sorts of countries. No one's been able to catch him yet."

"Ankh-Morpork has never actively attempted to do so," Selachii said, brushing all doubt aside. "Everyone has their weakness, Pender, and I intend to exploit his. However," he continued, "while I doubt we'll come upon them in the open ocean, should such a thing happen I would much rather we simply outrun them to Port Rana and avoid engaging them."

"But . . . I mean, they might take offensive action," Kevin shrugged. "They are pirates, really, and I would imagine they have a bit of a grudge."

Selachii chuckled. "They won't Kevin, don't worry. Vetinari, at the moment, is under the impression that he is working on commission for the Patrician."

"Oh," Kevin said, tapping the side of his nose. "I see. Very clever, that, sir. So we'll capture them in the harbor at Rana and bring them back to the city, will we?"

Selachii chuckled again and smiled in a way Kevin did not feel entirely at ease with. "Not quite."

--

A month passed. For Sam, it was an intensely informative month, filled with all sorts of life lessons and other at-sea survival skills.

The first thing he learned while on the Boat was that he knew almost nothing about pirates, or sailing. His books had been informative on history and stories, yes, but of course those had been glorified and gilded-over to sound much more grand and exciting. As far as he could tell, the most nerve-wracking moments on the Boat (at least on this trip) were those few tense minutes when they passed another ship and couldn't quite make out what country's colors it was flying. Of course, this never ended in a naval battle or anything epic like that. The climax was, invariably, a look-alike flag being run up the Boat's mast, and the other ship would very pleasantly ignore them completely.

The second thing he learned was how to tie a knot. He hadn't known there were so many kinds, and as he was informed on his second day at sea "if you don't know at least five basic knots you're bloody useless." So he'd gone into student-mode, observing and mentally taking notes on what the names of the knots were, how they were tied, and when they were used. He'd managed to master the square knot, a figure-eight stopper, a sailors' knot and the bowline loop, but he had proved hopelessly inadequate at even getting close to the sheepshank. Drumknott didn't approve, but since he had been able to handle four useful knots, the rest of the crew had voted they wouldn't force him to learn to swim in the open ocean (yet).

The third thing he learned was that living on a ship got really, really, really (times infinity) boring. The first few days were at least a little interesting, what with really getting the ship underway for the voyage and all, but after the first week or two the number of things to do onboard dwindled. The hold could always use cleaning, of course, and people had to look after the sails and of course one person was always on lookout and another steered (usually Vetinari, who would lackadaisically sort of turn the wheel every once and a while) but other than that . . . Well. Sam learned a number of card games and other ways to battle boredom, but most days he simply prayed for a storm or an enemy ship or _something_ interesting.

Today, however, was different. Apparently they were stopping for supplies in Port Rana. Sam helped tie things down and prepare the ship for harbor with the rest of the crew while Vetinari and Drumknott stood at the helm and conspired over a scrap of paper.

"So what do we do when we stop at port?" Sam asked Bart, who had sort of taken on a role-model position for the boy. "And how long do we stop for?"

"Dunno," Bart said, flawlessly tying up a sheepshank that Sam had been struggling with. "Captain usually tells us how long. On a stock stop like this, though, we're probably going to be shopping, mostly. Maybe only a day or two."

"Oh," said Sam. "And how long before we stop again?"

Bart snickered. "Well, since the Captain's pretty much wanted everywhere on the far side of the Counterweight Continent and the Agatean Empire doesn't have any ports open to foreigners . . . Probably a while."

Sam tried not to look disappointed. "Oh," he said slowly.

"But if you're worried about getting bored," Bart said smoothly, "we're going to be sailing pretty damn close to the Edge, so that's always a laugh."

"The Edge?" Sam paled. "What if we go off?"

Bart shrugged. "Then we go off. Won't happen though; never has before."

". . . Okay," Sam said slowly. "If you say so."

"Rana's off the starboard side!" Josiah called down from the crows' nest. Sam looked right and saw, sure enough, a brown strip on the horizon with protruding bits that were probably buildings. He also noticed there were a fair few number of ships around. He turned to Bart.

"What colors are we going to fly?" he asked, noticing that no one seemed to be paying attention to that.

"Nothing, probably," Bart said easily, throwing a length of rope to Sam. "Tie that down, would you?"

"Why nothing?" Sam asked, fumbling his way through a sailors' knot. Bart grinned.

"You never heard of Rana, I take?"

Sam wracked his brains. He knew where Hergen was, but beyond that he had nothing. "No, never heard of it," he said slowly.

"I imagine you wouldn't have, in that posh school of yours," Bart teased. Everyone liked to poke fun at Sam's education, but never too loudly, since Vetinari had roughly the same background, only with better grades. "It's a pirate port," he explained bluntly. "I mean, there is law enforcement and it is _somewhat_ civilized, not like Krull, but it's sort of a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, you know?"

"I see," Sam said slowly. He noticed the ship turning, and when he turned to face the bow he saw the port was now directly in front of them, about half an hour's journey away. Bart motioned for Sam to follow him to the hold, where the emptied containers had to be readied to be moved out and where the rest of the containers had to be reorganized. Just then, however, Vetinari stepped forward, waving his right hand.

"Attention, please, for instructions or something like them?" The crew, in an astounding feat of obedience, immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to face Vetinari, who was standing on the railing by the helm, swaying slightly but astoundingly managing to not fall off. Hs left hand was, as if had been almost solidly the whole journey, in his pocket. "Yes, very good," he said distractedly, waving the map a little.

"So we're going to be making berth in Rana," he said slowly, in case there were some crewmembers who hadn't quite caught on yet (and indeed, there was a man slowly coming to the realization that they were going to be making berth behind Sam). "Er, it'll be a quick stop for two reasons. One, because we need to keep moving on this commission; we have a time limit, gentlemen, and I would very much dislike to not finish within it," he said, making a face. "Second, because I am very much wanted in Hergen and I would rather not hang about."

"'Ere, I didn't know we were wanted in Hergen," the slow crewmember said, somewhat resentfully. "'Ow long 'as that been goin' on?"

"Oh no no _you're_ not wanted there," Vetinari said, waving the map in a placating gesture. "_I_ am. No worries though, their dock crews are easily bribed and pretty stupid. _So_. Who wants to be captain this time?"

Sam looked to Bart, bewildered. "What?" he hissed.

Bart snickered. "This is the routine whenever we go somewhere the Captain's wanted. See, there are some countries looking to arrest him for something petty so they can turn him in to a bigger country and collect on the reward. So we pick a new Captain for that port or whatever and a new name for the Boat so he gets around the whole thing."

"Oh," Sam said. "Well that's pretty clever."

"It's always worked thus far," Bart agreed.

Vetinari was looking out over the crew, expression minorly disappointed. "What, no volunteers? It's really not that hard, you just make up a name and give the nice man, woman or other type of individual some money." He sighed. "Fine. Blenkins, you're it."

"I had to do it last time!"

Vetinari pulled his hat down over his eyes, shoulders slumping. "Josiah, then. And that's final, captain's orders and everything else official."

Josiah grumbled but didn't say anything decipherable.

"All right, as far as what we're doing here . . ." he peered at the map a moment and swayed a little as the ship rocked. "No stealing, rape, pillaging, blah blah, the whole 'law-abiding citizens' routine. We'll probably leave either late tonight or early morning so it would probably be best if you're all back here tonight. You all will be stocking the ship up. Drumknott has the list," he said, gesturing in the first mate's general direction. "Are we clear?"

"Where are you going, cap'n?" the slower man behind Sam asked. Vetinari gave him a blank look and then shrugged, smiling slightly.

"You know, captainly things. And that sort of thing."

"Oh. Okay."

Vetinari jumped down and made his way back to the helm. "As you were!"

Bart and Sam moved back off toward the hold.

"Was he drunk?" Sam asked somewhat incredulously as he followed Bart down the stairs.

"When isn't he?" Bart countered.

Sam thought about that for a moment. "But why?" he asked finally. "I mean, how can he function at that level all the time?"

Bart handed Sam a mop as the proceeded into the hold. "He tried to sail sober once," he reflected. "It didn't work out. Downright scary, it was." He looked to Sam and shrugged. "He's a genius, you know. And he had a bad run a few years back."

"But what do either of those things have to do with anything?" Sam was confused – his mother and father had always spoken so highly of the man and in person . . . Well, he was sharper than most people, but he wasn't the calculating genius he'd pictured.

"You try going from ruling the biggest city in the world and being good at it," Bart said slowly, "to being _nothing_ in a period of twenty-four hours. That alone'll drive you mad, if you think about it too much. And the Captain thinks an awful lot when there isn't much rum."

"Ah," Sam said. He supposed it should have been more obvious, but then again he never remembered Vetinari being Patrician; he'd only been two when the man was exiled. It was almost like an afterthought to Sam, and he rather suspected Bart didn't remember much either. He must've picked up on it from the others.

Sam and Bart mopped and tied things down in silence from that point on. Sam realized he was aware when they got into the harbor – the ship was no longer rocking violently and the remaining animal (a goat he'd named Spew after its ability to hit humans from all the way across the hold) seemed to instantly calm. Bart leaned his mop up against the wall and motioned for Sam to follow as he made his way to the deck. The rest of the crew was lined up along the railing; some with ropes in hand, others without. When he looked to the helm, however, he realized Vetinari was nowhere to be seen, and Josiah was conversing with some men Sam had never seen before.

"What's going on?" Sam whispered, joining Bart on the rail.

"Figuring out where to put us," Bart answered. "Looks pretty crowded," he added, looking over the harbor. "A lot of people choose to berth here over the winter instead of Ecalpon; better weather."

"Ah." Sam watched as the men pointed to a general spot on the docks and then shook hands with Josiah. Then they headed to the side of the Boat, where they climbed down the side on a rope ladder and into a rowboat, presumably to await other ships. "Where's the Captain?" he asked very quietly, lest the men were still listening in.

Bart shrugged. "Dunno. Cabin, probably."

"Well that's not very good hiding," Sam muttered.

"Nothing to hide from yet," Bart smirked. Sure enough, Vetinari emerged from the Captain's cabin after Josiah casually stomped his foot. He made his way up to the helm and took note of where the ship was to be docked before heading down to the deck.

"So we're not to get up to anything, boss?" one of the sailors, Faroli, asked tentatively. "Nothing at all?"

"If Drumknott doesn't say you can do it, don't," Vetinari responded simply. He made his way over to Sam and Bart. "Clear off Bart, go do something with some ropes or something." Bart shot a smirk to Sam before making his way over to another group of sailors, who were talking and waiting around to tie the ship down.

"Sir?" Sam asked cautiously. He and Vetinari hadn't really had much contact since the first couple of days beyond him shouting orders at Sam. It was mainly Mr. Drumknott and Bart that helped Sam along.

"You're coming with me," Vetinari said without preamble, walking toward the stern of the ship. Sam, bewildered, followed.

"Sir?"

Vetinari stopped and turned, looking Sam up and down. Then he shook his head and kept walking. "Uncanny," he muttered. "Follow." He jumped up on the back railing, sizing up the distance from the ship to the dock. Sam froze.

"Sir?"

Vetinari sighed again. "As much as I _relish_ reminiscing every meeting I ever had with your father in the space of, oh, thirty seconds, sometimes I do enjoy complete sentences."

Sam paused for a minute. "What?"

"Oh another word; progress. Do go on."

"Er." Sam paused, gathered his thoughts, which was entirely too difficult to do considering Vetinari wasn't even paying attention to him at the moment, and then went on, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I can't swim."

This time it was Vetinari who stopped moving. Then, very slowly, he turned around. "You what now?"

"I can't swim," Sam muttered, more thoroughly embarrassed than he ever had been in his life. "I just . . . I never learned in the city."

Vetinari was rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So wait a minute here, and let me get this all straightened out." He paused. "_You_, the son of a rich noble couple who still happen to have some influence in my city, decide to stowaway on _my_ boat, am I correct thus far?"

"Er, yes?"

"Good, good. So you stowaway," Vetinari continued, jumping down and walking over to Sam, apparently thinking very hard, "by hiding in the hold, with all the animals and whatnot, without giving _any_ thought to the fact that ships have a limited food supply and, as you learned, rock a lot and travel great distances on the ocean over long periods of time. Am I still right?"

Sam was blushing bright red from his hairline to his neck now, and didn't trust himself to speak without sounding daft. So he just nodded uneasily.

"And the icing on this whole wonderful cake," Vetinari said, drawing even with the boy and using his considerable height and almost-decent (today) skills at standing still to loom to his best ability, "is that you, incidentally, don't know how to swim." He bent down so that he was at eye-level with the boy. "Did you use your brain for even five seconds, or is that an overestimation?"

Sam didn't respond. He was pretty sure he was about to cry. Vetinari watched him for a minute before turning away.

"Right, well I suppose there's another way we can do this." He paced up and down the railing as Josiah steered the ship alongside the dock. Bart and the others were all standing along the dock side of the rail, holding ropes, ready to tie the ship fast. Vetinari looked at them for a minute and the grinned. "Get me a rope."

Five minutes later, as the ship was still moving into its space on the dock, Sam found himself looking at a rope, hanging innocently from the rearmost mast of the ship. Vetinari was testing his weight on it and, apparently satisfied, thrust the rope to Sam. "So wait, I do what now?" Sam asked, fumbling the rope and looking incredulously to the dock, which was still about ten feet away. Thankfully, the harbor was crowded – there were enough ships docked that he and Vetinari's unconventional disembarking would go unnoticed.

"You grab the rope," Vetinari said slowly, as if speaking to someone vastly less intelligent than himself(1), "and swing over to the dock."

"But I can't swim!"

"Docks are solid, Sam."

"No but, I mean . . . I mean there's like, ten feet of water there! What if I fall?" Sam was trying not to visibly tremble, but it was a near thing.

Vetinari sighed and slumped a little. "Sam, I will lose all faith I have left in humanity if you cannot manage to flail ten feet through the water to the dock."

"But –"

"People _float_, Sam."

Sam swallowed and grabbed the rope, testing his weight on it. "And this is the only way?"

Vetinari paused for a minute. "No," he said slowly. "But it's the way we're going to do it."

Sam looked to the man incredulously then nodded weakly. "Okay," he stuttered with a gulp. He climbed up on the railing, took an extra firm grip on the rope, and swung.

--

(1) This constitutes the vast majority of people on the Disc.


	6. Run fast, kiddo

"Flail your arms in a more paddling-like motion, there's a good lad."

Sam Vimes Junior was a very unhappy boy. He had been at sea for almost two months, he was far from his home, under the care of a pirate crew headed by a possibly unhinged drunken captain and now he was wet. Very wet. The fact that he was actively drowning in the harbor next to the vessel he'd tried to swing off of – The Boat – may have had something to do with that.

"I can't – can't swim!" he spluttered, spitting salt water out of his mouth. He flailed his arms in a windmill motion, thrashing loudly in the water but failing to move forward toward the dock.

"You really should kick with your legs more," the captain, formerly Lord Havelock Vetinari, coached boredly. He couldn't have looked less concerned. In fact, he was drinking from a flask, looking around and making sure no one had spotted them. "Hurry up, we're going to be seen. You're not exactly being quiet."

"I'm _drowning_!" Sam yelled, lunging for the dock. He was almost within arm's reach now, surprisingly. However, his lunge forward had resulted in his head being totally submersed, so he had to take a moment to resurface, spit out the water, and resume flailing in place.

"You're not drowning," Vetinari scoffed. "You're learning. Lie on your stomach and flail more forward."

"I'll have to put my head under water!"

Vetinari took a swig of what was probably rum. "Because you haven't done that about fifty times already."

Sam glared. "It wouldn't kill you to help me, would it?" he snarled, flailing dock-ward once more. He managed to keep his head above the water this time, but he also failed to move very much at all.

"I'd rather not risk it," Vetinari sighed. "Come on, Sam, surely you're not really this idiotic."

"Swimming is hard!" grunted the younger Vimes. He lunged for the dock once more, trying to be dolphin-like and merely looking ridiculous. When he resurfaced, sputtering and panting, Vetinari was visibly trying not to laugh.

'_Gods, he's just infuriating_,' Sam thought indignantly. As hilarious as his last lunge may have looked, it had at least brought him within grabbing reach of the dock. He seized the edge of the timbers with one hand and pulled himself over. As he scrabbled onto the faded planks, Vetinari nodded.

"That was almost good enough to be dreadful," he said cheerfully, tucking his flask back into his coat. "Well done; it'll be easier next time." He headed off toward the streets of Rana at a leisurely pace, swaggering along like he owned the place.

"At least I can manage a straight line on dry land," Sam muttered, panting where he lay on the dock. When it became apparent that Vetinari would wait for no man, however, Sam hauled himself to his feet and damply jogged off after the man.

Sam caught up to him eventually and fell soggily into place beside the captain. "Do you know what we're doing here, Sam?"

"Captainly things?" Sam muttered sullenly. Vetinari gave him a sidelong glance and Sam slouched down a little more, wringing out his shirt.

"So you don't know how to swim," Vetinari said, apparently to himself, stopping by a street vendor's stand and taking stock of the various wares – Sam didn't see much worth picking up, just baubles and novelties. Vetinari, apparently, didn't see anything interesting either, and moved on through the crowd. Sam weaved along through the crowd trying to keep up.

"How are your grades?" Vetinari asked, out of nowhere. Sam wondered if this was an attempt at small talk, but knowing Vetinari, it definitely was not.

"Uh, good?" Sam said cautiously.

"Are you asking me?" Vetinari smirked. Sam stuttered for a minute while the captain paused at another stand, but fell silent when the man waved a hand and they continued on. "So naturally I'd imagine you're not much of one for trouble." It was an idle statement, but there was a trap there. Sam realized it, but couldn't find it for the life of him. He shrugged. Vetinari paused in front of a fruit stand.

"I guess not," the younger Vimes said slowly. "Never even had to go to the Headmaster's office."

Vetinari tsked. "Pity, Downey's a charming individual when you get beyond the fact that he has no discernable intelligence." He picked an apple out of the pile of fruit and examined it closely. The dim afternoon light glinted off its green skin. And then he smiled the most unnerving smile Sam had ever seen on a human being. "Tell me, do you exercise much?" he asked, casually starting to stroll away from the stand, apple unpaid for.

"Er, well I guess – shouldn't we . . .?" Sam glanced apprehensively back toward the stand, and noticed the owner thereof advancing angrily on them. Vetinari took a bite out of the fruit, spat it out, and shoved the apple into Sam's unresisting hand.

"This is shaping up to be quite an educational day for you, Sam," he said, almost gleefully. "I admit I should be very disappointed if I don't see you by seven at the tavern down by the docks."

"But -!"

"Here!" Sam whirled around, nervous beyond belief. The stand owner was storming up to Vetinari. He shook his finger under the captain's nose. Vetinari merely raised an eyebrow. "I saw you take that apple, don't think I didn't! I hope you're making to pay for that!"

Vetinari coughed. "I do hope you're not implying that I stole something from you, sir."

The shopkeeper glared, and then turned his attention to Sam. The apple, already partly gone, slipped from his fingers. "It's not what it looks like!" Sam said quickly, holding up his hands. "He took it!"

The shopkeeper glanced from Sam back to Vetinari, who shrugged. "I have no idea who this kid is. Been following me all afternoon, parasitic-like."

"No, it wasn't me it was him!" Sam protested, stepping back from Vetinari, horrified and afraid. _Ye gods he's a lunatic_, he thought frantically.

"Sir," Vetinari replied smoothly, "that I did nothing of the sort, and would be willing to reimburse you for any wrong that has been done here; he's just a confused boy."

"He's a thief, is what he is," the shopkeeper growled, setting his sights fully on Sam. "Thief!" He shouted, at what seemed to Sam to be a volume a human shouldn't be capable of. Nearby, two guards who had been lazing in the sun turned to Sam. He recognized the look. It said: 'We're not sure you're a thief but we don't like the looks of you anyway.' Sam had seen it on officer's faces many a time before, and knew some officers would bring back suspects for almost no reason, just to amuse themselves. Sam groaned and turned to Vetinari.

"This isn't fair!" he yelled. Vetinari made rapid shooing motions.

"Run fast," he encouraged. Sam, angry and scared and all kinds of confused, threw his hands up in the air and then, without another word, shoved his way through the crowd ahead of the guards, running as fast as he could. Vetinari watched his retreat, paying no mind to the shopkeeper berating him for encouraging the boy.

The captain – to anyone who didn't know him and didn't take the time to look – looked almost perfectly neutral. He certainly wasn't smiling. But anyone observant enough would have noticed that, despite his blank expression, Vetinari looked just a little pleased. "Fast learner," he muttered, before heading off into the crowd.

--

The town clock read six thirty. Sam decided, at long last, that it was about time to come out of hiding and face up to Vetinari, the bastard.

He slid from the roof of the building and onto a tin shed, secluded in an alleyway. His calves protested a little – they were sore from running for almost thirty minutes at a dead sprint. Stiffly, he made his way out of the alley and cautiously headed for the docks.

Whatever Vetinari may have been before his exile, Sam had concluded that afternoon, now he was simply completely insane. Of course, Sam realized, he may have been a bit biased at this point. Having the man frame him for petty theft and then leaving him to flee through a strange city and hide on a roof for four hours may have skewed his judgment of the man a little. But still, who _did_ that? It was cold, heartless, crazy and pointless.

What Sam didn't realize, or perhaps simply didn't fully appreciate at the time, was that the exercise had not at all been pointless. Certainly, he had spent four hours on the sunny roof of a nondescript building, trying his best to be invisible. He didn't yet realize how much it had taught him – he thought the seabird that had landed on his head around about six o'clock and then flown off in shock at landing on something that wasn't roof was simply a stupid bird. Other explanations, like excellent camouflage skills, never occurred to him.

It was but a moment's work to find the tavern by the docks – all Sam had to do was wait for some poor soul to go flying through the open doorway. Cautiously, he proceeded inside. A quick scan of the room did no good – Sam didn't see the man anywhere. A suspiciously empty corner, however, caught his eye. He made his way over. Sure enough, Vetinari was there; seated alone at a small table, drink in hand. Sam sat down and scowled.

"You escaped, I see," Vetinari remarked dryly. Sam noticed there was a cup on the table in front of him. He sipped cautiously, trying not to gag when the straight rum hit his tongue.

"Yeah," Sam muttered. "Thanks for all the help."

Vetinari took a drink. "So how did you do it?"

"What?" Sam swallowed down a small mouthful of the drink. "I dunno," he said sourly. "Ran through some houses, across some roofs, eventually they stopped chasing me. Spent four hours this afternoon on someone's roof, just laying still."

"Very good," Vetinari said, apparently delighted. "Well done."

"Yes, the next time I steal something I'll be sure to remember what I did today and follow along." He coughed after taking another sip. Vetinari was looking at him, eyebrow raised, apparently amused.

"You stole away aboard a pirate ship and are surprised you had to break the law?"

"I didn't _have_ to," Sam muttered. "I was forced into it."

"The point stands. We are pirates, Sam."

The boy sighed, exasperated. "But I thought you were on a commission from the Patrician! That's all very legit!"

"_Pirates_."

Sam scowled into his drink. It was apparent that leopards, regardless of what they're currently being employed for, do not easily change shorts. He was about to take another drink when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. He froze. Vetinari looked up, expression blank.

"My goodness, it _is_ young Sam Vimes, isn't it?" a smooth voice said from behind him. "And Havelock Vetinari too, what a _surprise_."

"Not quite as surprising as seeing an admiral in a tavern in Rana," Vetinari said quietly, taking a sip of his rum. "What brings you here this evening, Selachii?"

The hand left Sam's shoulder and a thin man slid into the seat next to Vetinari. He was nobility, that much was obvious to Sam. He recognized him from somewhere, probably one of the million official ceremonies his mother had been so intent on taking him to. He wore the crisp uniform of an Admiral for the Morporkian navy. Next to him, Sam felt as though he should at the very least brush some of the roofing dust off his pants. Selachii gestured to Sam.

"What interests me more is why you have the Vimes boy with you," Selachii said easily. He turned to Sam. "I do hope he didn't kidnap you."

"No," Vetinari said sharply. "He stowed away on my ship. We made berth here to restock and send the boy home."

"Ah." Admiral Selachii smiled thinly and nodded. Sam doubted he believed a word of it. "And you were treating him to a drink before he left, yes?"

"Yes," Vetinari said firmly. "And _now_, I think, would be a good time for him to leave." Sam, a little confused, raised his eyebrows. "You know where to go, Sam," Vetinari said easily with a lightening-quick smile. "Safe travels."

"Er," Sam said, standing, because that was clearly what he was expected to do. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I should get going." He took a step backwards and bumped into a large, solid chest. He turned to see a Morporkian sailor looming over him. He turned and waved. "Thanks for everything."

"If you'd like, one of my men can escort you to the coach yard," Selachii said with false kindness.

"Or, er, no, I know the way, thanks," Sam said timidly, backing around the sailor. As he got further away, he noticed at least three more Morporkian sailors throughout the tavern. They all watched as the boy made his way cautiously out of the tavern and onto the street. When he had vanished, Selachii turned back to Vetinari.

"You do realize that kidnapping carries a heavy charge in Ankh-Morpork, yes?" he asked with a very thin smile. "I'd imagine even your friend Vimes would support a full conviction in this case."

"I'm telling you, the boy stowed away on my ship," Vetinari said coldly, shrugging. "Honest truth. What're you doing here, Selachii? I can't imagine you came straight to Rana for the Vimes boy."

Admiral Selachii smiled easily and leaned back. There was the whisper of a sword being drawn. "You've had a good run, Vetinari," he said simply. "But I'm afraid all good things must and do come to an end." The sword came out from under the table and glinted in the dim lamplight. The volume of conversation in the tavern dropped noticeably as all eyes turned to the two men at the corner table. More sailors came out of the shadows. "I'm sure you know, Havelock, that piracy is punishable by death." He smiled. "We could do it neatly, with dignity and in privacy, or we could do this the messy way, right here. I give the choice to you."

"I admire your bravado," Vetinari said stiffly, taking a sip of his drink. "But I'm not sure you've got the message that I'm on commission from the Patrician at the immediate moment. I've been granted clemency."

"The terms have changed," Selachii replied. "Happily, Lord Rust realized his most grievous oversight. He came to understand the nature of your commission and, I'm happy to say, charged me and my men with coming out here to fetch you and carry out the commission."

"Is that so?" Vetinari asked quietly, setting his drink down. "This is quite the turn of events."

"I would say so," Selachii drawled, a slight hint of enjoyment crossing his face. "Now, Vetinari, let's not settle this business messily. You know I personally would much rather see you go like a gentleman, not some common criminal."

"Well I'm afraid we're in disagreement, James," Vetinari said with false cheerfulness, folding his hands on the table and smiling glassily.

"You would prefer to die here, as would any common thief?" Selachii raised his eyebrows, incredulous. "You're joking."

"Of course that's not what I would prefer," Vetinari chuckled. "I prefer not to die _at all_."

Everyone in the tavern, after hearing that, knew it was coming, but chaos still broke out when it did. The Morporkian navy men lunged forward for the pirate just as two very business-like daggers appeared in Vetinari's hands. The two men got a look of intense constipation on their faces before keeling over onto the table, guts spilling messily onto the floor.

"Get him!" Selachii shouted as Vetinari drew his sword. It sliced neatly through another midshipman and Vetinari hurdled over the man's torso as he pelted for the door. The other patrons of the tavern had also begun fighting, though they were fighting no one in particular. Pirate taverns never needed a real reason to break out into a brawl, they just needed an excuse. Selachii snarled at his remaining men, who were bent over their fallen comrades. "Leave them! For the sake of the gods, just get bloody Vetinari!" The sailors, realizing there was nothing to be done for their comrades, took off after Vetinari.

--

Sam climbed aboard the Boat, this time via the gangplank. Drumknott, standing at the helm, making notations on a clipboard, gave him a curious look. Sam brushed his too-long hair out of his face and scowled as he made his way up to the man. The wind was really picking up. "Where's the captain?" Drumknott asked.

"Back at the tavern," Sam answered shortly. Drumknott paused.

"Alone?"

"No." A pang of fear passed over him when Drumknott gave him a Look. "Admiral Selachii was there."

"Admiral Selachii?" Drumknott tucked his pencil into his shirt pocket with some urgency and leaned down to eye-height with Sam. "What did Vetinari say before you left? This is very important. And did Selachii look friendly?"

"Neither of them seemed particularly pleased to see one another," Sam said with a shrug. "Vetinari made up some story about me going home on the coach and told me to leave."

Drumknott blinked. "Did he tell you to go to the coach yard?"

"No, he said I knew where to go and that I should leave right then." Sam frowned. "Listen, we're on commission from Ankh-Morpork now right? We shouldn't have too much to worry about."

"We're not on commission anymore," Drumknott said grimly. "Well done, Sam." He turned to the crew, most of whom were standing about on the deck, idly going about their duties making sure the ship was ready to cast off, though it pretty much was. Pirates, a naturally jumpy sort of people, were never too far from ready-to-cast-off. "Cast off men!" Drumknott shouted. "They're here!"

"What'd I do?" Sam yelled over the sudden commotion as tie-downs were undone and the sails dropped. The wind kicked into the sails immediately and the Boat started gliding backwards out of the harbor.

"Gave us a head start," Drumknott said, distracted as he steered the ship backwards – never an easy task.

"But what about Vetinari?" Sam looked back in the direction of the tavern and was worried to see the orange-red glow of a fire starting. He also heard the shouting, much louder than it should have been at this distance.

"He'll take care of himself," Drumknott said, as the Boat moved out of the slip. "He's always managed to before."

Sam was about to protest – to say something about the number of sailors there had been at the tavern – when he became aware that the shouting he'd thought to be coming from the tavern was getting progressively louder. Drumknott was smirking a little. "I'd hazard to guess he's on his way now," he said dryly.

Sure enough, about thirty seconds later, Vetinari appeared on the dock, sprinting as fast as humanly possible. What looked like half the crew of Selachii's ship was behind him. Some of them were pulling crossbows out of their belts.

"So I guess this means we're back to good old, honest pirating?" Bart asked from the deck with a laugh, as Vetinari dove under a food cart with a tuck and roll impressive for a man his age and intoxication level. The sailors stalled and lost ground, but they still weren't far behind.

"Looks like it," Drumknott replied.

"How's he going to get to the ship?" Sam asked, mildly concerned but, for once, feeling like this was what pirating was all about.

"Unlike some of us, he can swim," Drumknott replied with a smirk. Sam scowled. It didn't last, however, because a second later a crossbow bolt thudded into the helm and Sam found himself ducking for cover. Some of the sailors had got within range it seemed, and were kneeling on the docks, firing on the Boat. "Return fire!" Drumknott yelled. There was a roar and Sam – adrenaline pumping so hard he could barely register what was going on – realized that below, someone had fired an Agatean cannon onto the docks. A portion of the structure simply exploded, casting wood and little sailor bits far and wide.

"Not the cannons, you bloody idiots!" Vetinari yelled from the docks. He didn't even pause when he got to the end of the pier, simply took a flying leap into the water. The Morporkian sailors, understandably reluctant to dive into the water after a pirate who was swimming straight for his own ship, skidded to a halt at the end of the docks, drawing their crossbows and taking aim. Arrows sunk into the water but Vetinari was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" Sam asked, as Drumknott thrust a crossbow into his hands.

"Underwater," the first mate replied. "Bolts'll lose speed fast in water. If you're deep enough, they can't hit you. Now shoot them back."

At this point, the Boat had made it about halfway into the harbor, thanks to the strong winds. However, this meant the Morporkian sailors were in range to fire on them from both sides. Sam crouched down behind the main mast and took aim. He'd been trained to shoot, at the Guild, but he'd never actually _shot_ at anyone, so most of his bolts went high or wide. Whether this was on purpose or not, he wasn't sure.

There was a splash in the water from the port side of the ship. Sam glanced to the stern and saw Bart and Josiah had thrown a rope out, presumably for Vetinari. A tricorn leather hat landed damply on the deck, and a moment later Vetinari scrambled up after it.

"Alright, sir?" Sam heard Bart yell.

"I'm fine," Vetinari snapped. "Now shoot the bastards. With the cannons."

"You said –" Drumknott started, but Vetinari's eyes narrowed.

"I know what I said, Drumknott, but I'm not personally on the docks anymore."

"But the port –!"

"Who cares?!" Vetinari yelled, pulling a crossbow out of the recesses of his coat. "I hate this bloody place!" The deck shuddered as the cannons fired.

Sam ducked lower to the deck, trying to fire at the sailors who were not, at that moment, flying through the air amidst splinters and loose planks of wood. Vetinari made for the helm, which was currently being manned by a hunkered-down Drumknott. Sam didn't see the arrow coming, but he definitely saw it as it stuck fast in Vetinari's left shoulder. Sam became aware of an icy chill up his spine as the captain dropped to the deck.

"Captain!" Drumknott slid on his belly to the edge of the quarterdeck.

"I'm fine!" Vetinari groaned. "Just get away! Fire at their ship if you can!"

"Which one?"

"Probably brought the bloody _Integer_," Vetinari said, rolling onto this side. "Oh, gods this doesn't feel good."

At the top of the stairs to the hold, Bart was shouting orders to fire one the _Integer_, as many times as possible. The deck shuddered again, and Sam looked in the direction of the shot. Sure enough, there was a ship called _Integer_ that had just lost a good chunk of its foretopmast. Sails, some of them on fire, crashed onto the ship's deck and Sam saw people jumping for safety. He reached for another crossbow bolt, but found none. He slid the bow across the deck, and into the hatch, where it dropped to the hold below. A few more cannon shots rang out, but for the most part they were out of range and all fire had stopped. Sam looked back over the _Integer_. She was damaged, certainly, but she was still seaworthy. Sam wondered how much time that had bought them.

He turned around to see Vetinari sitting up, leaning against the door to his cabin. He looked decidedly unwell. "Godsdammmit, I can't afford another six months," the man groaned, apparently speaking to someone. When Sam looked, however, there was no one there. Only empty deck and an inexplicably frozen puddle. Sam peered closer, and may have seen a dark shadow or a blue glint, but Drumknott interrupted him. He hoisted the boy to his feet and pushed him in the general direction of the hatch.

"Go see to any wounded we might have down below," he said firmly. Sam nodded dumbly and made for the stairs. Behind him, Drumknott made his way back to Vetinari, who had all but passed out on the deck.

"You're not alright, sir," Drumknott said firmly.

"Nope."

Drumknott slid an arm under the man's uninjured shoulder and helped him up. "So what are we doing now?" Drumknott asked, fumbling the door to the cabin open.

Vetinari paused, and for a moment Drumknott thought he must have finally passed out, as limp as he went. "We have to lay low for a while, I think," the man said slowly, finally. "But we're damn sure going after that bloody treasure now. Bastards." He paused again and staggered forward a step, leaning on his desk. "We'll go to Agatea. The swamps on the hubwards coast. You know what I'm talking about."

"Yessir," Drumknott said slowly. "You think she can help us?"

"She's damn' well not going to hurt us," Vetinari mumbled. "But before you do that, do me a favor?"

"Sir?"

"Pull this arrow out of me." Drumknott couldn't help but smile as the man finally keeled over on his desk. He pulled a needle and thread out of a vest pocket.

"Agatea it is then."


	7. OH HAI THIS ONE TIME

Admiral Selachii was not a happy man. It had taken two weeks to repair the damage done to the _Integer_ in the bloody pirate attack, time that could have been more usefully spent hunting down blasted Vetinari and his classless pirate crew. Now they could be anywhere, and they still had the Key. Selachii frowned at his map of the waterways surrounding Agatea while Kevin hovered nervously nearby.

"Kevin, I am rather pressed, I feel, in this case." He traced out a route across the map in pencil before rubbing it out again. He turned to the young man. "Vetinari is not a fool, and he has traveled these seas more than I have; doubtless he knows several hideaways or shortcuts. A heading, I fear, may put us at a distinct disadvantage."

"Sir," Kevin said slowly, "if I may be so bold, there are no shortcuts through the Agatean continent. All possible waterways are closed to outsiders."

"Outsiders is the key word, Kevin," Selachii said with a frown. "I'm sure Vetinari has an Agatean flag to sail under, which would grant him passage through any of their waterways."

"And he knows how to speak Agatean, sir?"

"What do you think, Kevin?" Selachii sighed. "As I see it, our only option would be to patrol the area around the cape of Ting Ling." He circled the area on the map and laid the pencil aside. "With luck, we'll run into them."

--

After the battle in Port Rana, the crew of the Boat had been, if not on edge, then very alert. Vetinari had been apparently unconscious for a week, although several members of the crew were pretty sure Drumknott had just locked the cabin up to keep him in there. Of course, for humanity's sake, the first mate had also been spotted ferrying several bottles of rum in and out of the cabin.

That week was long gone, however, and now the crew was back at sea, with no land in sight, and Vetinari rather boredly at the helm. Sam and Bart had settled down on two barrels on the deck and were enjoying a game of cards. Of course, other members of the crew were hovering around the perimeters of the game, waiting for some hint of foul play or something other than an improperly tied knot to stir up the afternoon's excitement. As it was, Bart and Sam were possibly the only two pirates in the entire ocean who played fair, so eventually interest in the game waned and the crew turned their attention to who could tell the most gruesome story.

"Well," Josiah said slowly, "once I was at sea with this young captain, you see, and we decided to board a ship out of Hung Hung. We thought maybe they were carryin' some gold, right? Well, turns out they were transportin' some fearsome seas creature, the likes of which ain't never been seen since. 'Course, we weren't to know that. So we boarded the ship, right, and we were killin' and takin' hostages and makin' sure we was clear to go down to the hold and start collectin' what we was sure was gold."

Bart winked at Sam as the game ended and gestured toward Josiah. "This is gonna be a good one," he said quietly. Sam laid the cards down and turned his attention to the old crewmember, who had at this point drawn the attention of the whole crew. All members currently on deck had meandered over. Some of them seemed riveted, others were smirking skeptically. Vetinari himself was leaning on the helm, apparently looking at a flock of seabirds that had landed on and were picking at the carcass of a deceased whale.

"So's we finally get the whole crew subdued, right, an' the captain and the second mate an' a coupla others go down into the hold an' we all hear the most godsawful screamin' you ever could hear. We think it's an ambush, o'course, so me an' a few other lads break for the hold to help out.

"Well, righ' at that moment out of the deck sprays just this huge amoun' o' blood an' I mean huge," he said, really gathering steam now and waving his arms wildly, clearly trying to convey with mere words what may have been the most horrific sight of his life, probably. Sam's mouth hung wide open. "An' then, out of the deck, bursts this . . . this _beast_." And here Josiah lunged forward, snarling. Several sailors jumped back, although Sam was pretty sure he heard a very sarcastic, "Oh the _horror_," from Vetinari.

"It was long, almost like a whale," Josiah described. "Only its flippers were furry and there were four of 'em. Its eyes . . . there were eight of 'em and it looked like a bat or somethin'. There was an _arm_, so help me, hangin' out of its mouth, and blood all slick down its front."

"Who's arm?" asked one of the sailors. Sam couldn't bother to look – he was much too interested.

"Damned if I know," Josiah said quickly. "Me an' the others, we ran into the captain's cabin and locked the door. The beast snorked up everythin' else on the deck that was livin' – goats, the cat, other people o'course. I'd bet they weren't feedin' that thing for _weeks_, based on how it was eatin'.

"And then, when everything was gone, the beast – whatever it was – stood up on its back flipper . . . things and made this right awful keenin' noise, like it was cryin' out. Then the thing, and I swear here on my dear mother's grave, looked _right _into the cabin, at all o' us, watchin' him out the window. An' then there was this great vibration or somethin' – the windows shook and everythin'. An' then the beast he whipped around an' looked at the sea an' like a shot he was off over the railin', gone forever." The old sailor shook his head. "I can't imagine I'd be alive today were it not for the _whatever_ it was that made that noise."

"So you never saw anything like it again?" Blenkins asked, voice hushed.

Josiah shook his head. "Like I said, gone forever, 's far as I know."

"I'll bet the thing on the ship was jus' a young thing," cackled the only crewmember older than Josiah – a grizzled old man that even Vetinari seemed wary around and who was, apparently, called Spalding. "Sounds like it to me, the way it ran off with the other noise."

"Maybe," Josiah said slowly. "Could be, sure."

At that moment, just when other crewmembers were trying to work up questions to either determine the validity of the tale or whether or not they, personally, were in danger, the ship bumped and rocked. Sam almost lurched off his barrel and Bart lunged for the cards. As one, the entire crew turned to Vetinari, who looked concernedly over the side of the ship.

"Reef?" Spalding croaked.

"No, not a reef," Vetinari said, making his way over to the side with what some might have perceived as trepidation. "Bloody great dark patch, though, not sure what –"

The ship lurched again and Vetinari jumped back from the side. Though he was silent, half of the crew screamed and all of them, including Spalding, leapt for the main mast, huddling around it for protection from what was almost certainly a great beast of unknown origin. After a few panicked seconds, however, Sam realized that Vetinari, who was sprawled over the wheel, was not actually screaming or in pain – he was laughing hysterically. Josiah instantly scowled.

"Oh that was _great_," Vetinari gasped. "_Totally_ worth it."

Sam looked to Bart who rolled his eyes. "You had to admit, he got us pretty good there," he chuckled, all terror past.

"Well here now, how'd you get the ship to rock about like that?" Josiah demanded, getting back to his feet. Vetinari, apparently incapable of speech, waved a hand in a vaguely sternward direction. The whale carcass was spinning gently after being broadsided by the ship, and the seabirds were flapping around it, somewhat indignant that their meal had been interrupted.

Josiah spat and straightened his vest. "Hilarious, captain. Downright hilarious," he said stiffly.

"Glad you agree," Vetinari chuckled, wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh man, Sam especially, you all just _spasmed_. That was great."

Drumknott, at that moment, emerged from below deck and paused at the top of the stairs, raising an eyebrow. "Something going on?" he asked mildly, upon sighting over half the crew in a massive dogpile around the main mast and the captain draped over the helm, still laughing. Rapidly, everyone climbed back to their feet and stood around looking embarrassed.

"Er, no sir," Bart said quickly. "Just, uh, thought we might have hit something."

"What, the dead whale?"

"Yeah, uh, we tried to get to stations, sir," stuttered Josiah. "We just all sort of tripped over one another on the way, you know how it is."

"Actually they were running away from a sea monster," Vetinari contributed. "It was going to eat us all."

". . . Right." Drumknott coughed. "Back to whatever you were doing, gentlemen."

Sam and the rest of the crew made their way sheepishly back to various stations around deck, checking knots and inspecting the deck and such. Drumknott made his way to the helm, where Vetinari had managed to compose himself and was having a drink. Sam was re-coiling a rope that had been disturbed in the scramble earlier underneath the helm, with the aid of Spalding.

"Do we have an estimated time of arrival?" Drumknott asked, drawing even with Vetinari.

Sam heard the click of the man's compass followed by the crinkle of a map. There was a pause. "I dunno," Vetinari finally concluded. "Within the next few days, maybe a bit more than a week at the outside, I'd think. Barring weather and sea monsters. We'll have to wait for the stars to tell us anything for certain."

Spalding dropped his end of the rope and looked up sharply, scowling. Arthritically, he hobbled up to where the Captain and Drumknott were standing.

"Er, hello Spalding," Sam heard Vetinari say with an uncharacteristic caution. "Is there a problem?"

"Damn' right, there's a problem," Sam heard the old man reply. "Listen, boy, I know what all this navigatin' by only stars is about, 'm not stupid."

"What, it's more accurate? Spalding, people proved that years ago with maps and science and things –"

"No," the old sailor growled. "This is about yer witch, isn't it? Sailin' to the continent, rather than go around. Navigatin' with stars, sailin' mostly at night."

"She's not _my_ witch, Spalding."

Boots clunked on the floor. Sam could only imagine, based on the much lower volume of the conversation that Spalding had moved in closer.

"Listen, boy, you think yer pretty clever," Spalding rumbled, voice hushed. "An' so far ye have been. But ye an' I both know ye can only be lucky for so long." Sam would never be sure, but he thought he caught a 'don't I know it' from a vaguely Vetinari-sounding voice.

"Jus' because yer all tied-up in this witchcraftin' business, don't mean ye have to tie the rest o' us all up in it too," the man warned sternly. "I don' hold with that sort o' thing."

"Spalding, you're not, as far as I know, getting tied up in any witchcraft," Vetinari sighed. There was a pause. "But if you're so very opposed to it, you can stay behind on the Boat." There was a familiar rummy sloshing sound. "Whatever the case, I would say this visit is rather important." There was a heavy silence. Then, "Er, Drumknott, go away, would you? This is getting awkward."

Sam hastily looked down and focused on his rope-coiling as a bemused-looking Drumknott made his way down the stairs and made his way around to the bow, checking in on Bart and Josiah. While Sam was fairly certain he was the only one able to hear the conversation above, the fact that Spalding and Vetinari were talking fairly secretively had not escaped the attention of the crew on deck. Some of them were shooting Sam curious looks, but he ignored them and tried to look distinctly like he was not eavesdropping.

"What are ye up to for Ankh-Morpork?" Spalding asked bluntly.

"This." Sam heard something being drawn out of a pocket, and a sharp intake of breath from the older sailor.

"You bloody idiot."

"Listen, apparently it doesn't extend to crewmembers. Otherwise I would have just given the damn thing back to the Morporkians back in Rana."

"Fine fer us," Spalding huffed. "Yer still an idiot."

"Spalding it doesn't really matter, considering my situation."

"How long?"

"Four months now, thanks to bloody Selachii."

Sam heard the Spalding suck the air through his teeth. "What then? Yer goin' to let that clerk o' yours take it?"

"Spalding, by that point I expect to have valuable everything in the hold and the wretched . . . thing on a fast coach back to the city. Rust can have his damn' treasure, as far as I'm concerned."

"Ha! Plans." Spalding spat. "Yer an idiot, Vetinari, you know that?"

"You keep telling me."

"What about the boy?"

"Who, Sam? What about him?"

"Ye can' be expectin' him to take righ' to piratin'. He'll wan' t'go home."

"Fine, Drumknott will see to it. Oh and he's staying with you when we go to see her, by the way," Vetinari added, as an afterthought. Sam tried furiously to figure out what they were talking about and what, exactly, was going on.

"He will not."

"What you think I should take him with? That's a great idea, exactly what he needs," Vetinari snorted. "His parents will be absolutely thrilled, I'm sure. Besides, he's a hopeless romantic; it'll just get messy."

"He needs t'see her."

"She doesn't need to see _him_, Spalding," Vetinari hissed. "She'll love him. It'll be awful."

Sam heard the sailor chuckle. "I see. Ye wan' to protect him, do ye? Very noble of ye, captain. The boy'll be happier if he don' know what's goin' on in the world, righ' before some great beastie rears up out o' the seas and makes lunch of us all."

There was a stony silence. "There will be no seas beasts, Spalding."

"Ye know better, ye bloody idiot. Look at it this whole mess – it's a classic. Magic an' evil an' pirates. Yer an idiot, but ye can' be that bloody-minded."

A longer pause. "Fine, he can row the boat. And stop calling me an idiot."

"Someone's got to keep ye humble, ye stupid fool." And then he cackled and hobbled back down the stairs, winking at Sam on his way to the hold.

--

Miles away, under the constant dichotomy of a sky that was typical the closer you got to the Edge, another pirate captain was lounging in a chair on the outdoor porch attached to a rather more upscale sort of pub in Larkesburgh, the only pirate-tolerant port in the Brown Islands. The Brown Islands were something of a merchant hub, and since merchants were not fond of anything less-than-reputable, the standard of living for pirates was just a smidge higher than that in other cities or on other islands thanks to a healthy trickle-down affect. And so, the pub was not quite sketchy enough to be considered almost nice-ish. Which was why the captain liked it there – it was a place where he could relax without fear of a sudden brawl and he could bring the wife along with him, as well.

He was weighing the pros and cons of getting up to get another drink when he heard the squeak of a chair being pulled out. He opened his eyes to see another pirate seating himself at the table, looking mostly nonchalant. The captain recognized him – he was the man you went to to get information. He knew everything that was happening on the Islands, and most everything that was going on with pirates out on the open ocean as well. He tipped his hat to the captain and smiled.

"Afternoon, sir," he said, smirking. The captain rolled his eyes. It was the tip of the hat and the smirk, that was the signal; the little harbor rat had something to talk about. He leaned forward in his chair and put on his best smile.

"Afternoon, Goeffert." He swilled the remains of his drink around in his cup and looked out over the harbor that the pub was oh-so-conveniently near. "What brings you in here this afternoon?"

Goeffert leaned back and draped an arm over the back of his chair. "Oh, sir, what makes you say that? A man can't just see an acquaintance as he passes by the pub and drop in for a little hello these days?" He shook his head. "It's a right shame, really."

The captain chuckled. "I shouldn't think you've been accustomed to that state of affairs for a while now, Goeffert." He tapped his cup on the table once or twice and looked at the man enquiringly. "You have something I might find interesting. And I might be willing to pay you for it, should I find it interesting enough."

Goeffert nodded satisfactorily. That was what he'd been waiting for. His method of spreading information was pretty novel, considering how things like that were normally done. Rather than simply charging an up-front price for information gathered, Goeffert would tell the informee what he might want to hear straight out, and the customer would then pay Goeffert based on whether or not he or she found the information useful or interesting, and how interesting it may have been. Consistently higher payoffs would win you the juicier, quieter details in the end. Those who didn't pay were trusted to keep their mouths shut. Those who failed at that were usually sportingly given two days grace to come up with an approved sum of money before they disappeared forever. No one had succeeded yet. It was an unusual way of gathering and spreading information, to say the least, but so far it had worked like a charm.

He leaned forward on the table and looked around, scanning for eavesdroppers. The more savvy patrons of the tavern had certainly noticed Goeffert's arrival, but they averted their eyes from the captain's table. They knew better than to get caught listening in. The informer nodded satisfactorily and leaned in. "Bit of news out of Ankh-Morpork way, just came in off the boys in the harbor. Apparently, the Patrician's found himself a bit of a bauble and sent some chaps out running after it on a treasure hunt."

The captain raised his eyebrows. There was a quiet sound as he slid his wallet out of his coat and laid it on the table. "What sort of treasure are we talking about here?"

The informer nodded and went on, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Well, sir, no one knows for sure, but the consensus in the rumors are that it's either the Silver Chalice of HungHung or the Black Iron Key." He winked to the captain, who raised his eyebrows even further. They both knew that the Chalice, while still thought to be at large by the majority of treasure hunters and pirates out there, had been picked up by the captain a couple of years ago on the quiet, thanks to some _very_ informative tidbits from Goeffert.

The captain pursed his lips and flipped open his wallet. Paper money, still a somewhat of a novelty but being used with increasing frequency in countries all over the Disc, fluttered softly in the harbor breeze. "So did old Rust send the navy out for this treasure, or did he use mercenaries?"

Goeffert chuckled. "Now here's the part I knew you'd like, sir. Seems he's hired out old Vetinari and granted him clemency. Made a deal with the devil, sort of thing."

The captain's eyes had gone wide. "He _didn't_." A smirk crept across his face. "The bloody idiot hired out Vetinari?" he hissed, looking more gleeful by the second. "Ye gods, he did, didn't he."

"As I live and breathe," Goeffert laughed, raising his hand. "That much is certain, anyway."

The captain pulled a wad of bills out of his wallet. "Well done, Goeffert. That is _very_ interesting indeed. Any idea where they're headed?"

"Turnwise toward Agatea. Seems to be playing off the old stories that the treasure is somewhere near Slakki." He tapped the table. "But I haven't even got to the best part yet."

The captain chuckled. "Well, we've got Rust hiring Vetinari to take the Black Iron Key out and pick up some treasure for him, how much better does it get?" he muttered, pulling another couple of bills out.

Goeffert looked around once more and leaned in even closer. "Now, sir, none but a precious few souls know about this, but since I knows you're such a good customer I'll let you have it straight away and fresh off the press. But I ask for secrecy on this one, can't have anyone knowing about it," he added, displaying a remarkable consideration for the current politics of the Disc. He cleared his throat, and went on, in a barely audible whisper, "a couple of the boys on old No-Legs Pearson's boat says they saw a stowaway slide onto Vetinari's boat right before they launched out. They says –" he licked his lips, eyes sparkling with anticipation – "they says they saw it was the Vimes boy."

There was a long silence. The captain looked around, licked his lips. "Commander Vimes's son? Young Sammy?"

"As best they could tell, sir."

"How old is he now?"

"I wouldn't have knowledge of that, sir, not my department, maths."

The captain thought for a moment. "Must be oh, fifteen, sixteen now. Hm. Well, Goeffert, I have to say, that is one of the most interesting things I've heard in a long time."

The informer took the proffered wad of currency, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I thought you'd think that, sir, which was why I came to you, first and foremost," he said jovially, clearly pleased with a job well done. "So you think you'll make sail after it then?" It wasn't a question the captain hadn't expected – you got what you gave, when you were dealing with Goeffert, and to _get_ information you have to be willing to _give_ a little on occasion.

He shrugged. "I might make a run for it, yeah."

"It's going to be tricky."

"I'm good with tricky." He grinned. "It's my specialty, even."

Goeffert nodded, smiling. "And there's a curse, you know."

The captain nodded. "Of course there's a curse, I knew that. But you see, if we beat them _to_ the treasure and take it from them when we get there, the curse is a moot point, you see?"

Goeffert tapped the side of his nose. "That's a twisty way of thinkin' you got there, sir. I like it. You're going to have to get past his crew first, though." He chuckled. "Of course, I doubt they'll be much of a problem if you're planning on taking the Missus with you."

"Does she ever not go?"

"True, true." He nodded and sat in silence for a moment. "I'd think you'll leave port tonight, yeah? You'll be sailing hubwards and they've got a few weeks' head start on you."

The captain smirked. "I'll be leaving within the next twenty-four hours, yeah. But I shouldn't think their head start will amount to much."

"No?"

"Not for a ship with Leonards."

The informer's eyes twinkled a little. "Oh, yeah? When'd you manage to pick some of those up?"

"Oh, a while ago. We had to lose some of the cannons to make up for the added weight, but you know me, I'm not a violent man. Hardly even worth keeping, as far as I'm concerned."

He chuckled. "With all due respect, sir, you hardly need to be violent with your Missus around. She can handle business well enough for both of you."

A nod. "And she's done a wonderful job of it in the past, thank you, Goeffert. I'll be sure to let her know you complimented her."

The informer rose, laughing. "Always a pleasure talking to you sir. Good luck, yeah?" He flipped the captain a mockery of a naval salute before heading back through the pub and out onto the street again, continuing the spread of information. The captain smiled bemusedly to himself, rolling his empty cup between his hands.

"So Vetinari's out with the Key," he muttered, inaudible to anyone else in the pub, "on a commission from Rust. And he's got Sammy." He chuckled. "Well isn't life just plain dandy." He pushed his chair back, picked his gold-rimmed tricorn up off the table, and made his way out of the pub, smiling and waving goodbye to the bartender, who wouldn't realize until a few hours later that that nice young captain had never paid for his drink.


	8. Monsters have feelings too

Author's Note: Holy long time between chapters, batman! Still not beating my five-year interval for Revolutions though hahaha. Winter session is finished though, and this chapter is ready for the postin'. Please, please do enjoy this lovely offering I have for you today. And remember to review at the end. But if you forget that's okay, because I plan on reminding you.

--=--

It was midnight, or near enough. Sammy was, once again, perched up in the crows' nest, looking out over the ocean, still enough tonight to look like a black mirror for the stars. Josiah was at the helm, waiting for something to happen, occasionally turning the wheel to adjust the course of the ship slightly to account for currents. Vetinari was leaning on the capstan, map spread out in front of him, compass preventing it from blowing away, though there was no worry about that tonight. He seemed to be charting a course by the stars, and the compass really seemed to have very little to do with it.

Sam was fighting drifting off to sleep. The air was pleasantly warm, there was a soft little breeze running through the rigging, and the ship was rocking incredibly gently, just enough to be really soothing. He leaned up against the railing of his perch and looked out over the sea, not really focusing on anything.

He'd been at sea almost two full months now, he realized. He wondered if his parents missed him, if they'd figured out where he'd run off to. He liked to think they did – he was sure the must be worried but perhaps they didn't miss him too terribly. Or perhaps it was the other way around. School would have been going for about the same length of time he'd been gone, too. He wondered how his friends were doing, if they knew why he was gone or if no one knew, and everyone just thought he was dead. He felt a slight pang of guilt at that, perhaps he _should_ have left some kind of note for his parents, but it had just seemed like there wasn't any time. He imagined his mother, out in the dragon house, sad and alone at the evening feeding, and his father, overseeing what was probably a fruitless investigation into his disappearance . . .

His stomach turned and he tried to think about something else. He would come back some day, of course, and they'd be happy to see him, maybe, depending on how long he'd been gone and whether or not they thought he was dead. And he'd go back to school and everything would go back to normal . . .

But it wouldn't, he realized. He would be at least a year behind all his friends at the Guild, and they'd all graduate ahead of him. An icy lump settled in his stomach as he realized the Guild may not even take him back – there was a limited amount of students they were able to sustain, and if they didn't have room for him when he came back, he might never finish his education. And besides, his friends would have been at the Guild for all that time, not out on the sea, running around with pirates, stealing and hiding from authorities and getting in naval battles. The gap in experience would be enough to separate them, never mind the years of schooling.

Sam rubbed his eyes and sighed, frustrated. In retrospect, perhaps it was a really royally stupid idea to come out here. But it had seemed so right at the time! And he was learning, he'd learned loads since he'd come aboard. How to tie knots, how a ship works, the boatswain had even taught him a little carpentry after the battle with the _Integer_ and its crew, so he could help patch the arrow holes up in the ship. And of course he was the ship's doctor, he'd seen every injury to go down on board, except for the captain's shoulder, which he rather suspected Vetinari was plenty capable of seeing to himself.

Sam leaned forward and looked down. Below, Vetinari had moved to the helm and was discussing changes in navigation with Josiah. Well, he was 'discussing' it in the sense that he was telling Josiah what to do, and Josiah, for completeness' sake, would say something like 'Yes, captain'. The captain would look to the stars every few minutes, sucking his pencil, and then would make a note on the map. After a time, he took the map and made his way back to the capstan, where he pulled another map out of his pocket and set to work on that one. Josiah remained at the helm, holding course hubwards turnwise.

Sam slouched back in the crows' nest and assumed as comfortable a position as he could manage. The Boat rocked gently(1) on the waves, the stars and moon shone in the clear night sky overhead, the breeze blew, and Sam drifted off, eyes half open, fixed fuzzily on the black-on-black line that marked the horizon tonight.

A time later, his eyelids fluttered as the Boat rocked harder to port once, and he muzzily peered at the waves, looking for a reef or some flotsam that they might have bumped. There was nothing, so he settled back and yawned. Below, unbeknownst to Sam, Vetinari glanced at Josiah, who shrugged. The sea settled, right up until the Boat positively _lurched_. Sam conked his head on the mast and sat up, ram-rod straight, glancing around for the source of the disturbance. Nothing, although a patch of sea looked a hair dark to him. Of course, that could be anything, and it did seem relatively stationary. He glanced to the deck. Vetinari had stowed the navigational supplies away and was leaning over the railing, staring at the water. He looked up to Sam, eyebrow raised. The boy shrugged.

"Could be whales," Sam heard Josiah suggest faintly. "Pods hang out around the Counterweight Continent, usually. Might have just bumped us."

Vetinari drummed his fingers on the rail. "And the closest land is four leagues off?"

"By your navigation, sir."

There was silence. Sam couldn't be sure, but he thought he felt the Boat rock a little harder than normal once more. Then Vetinari motioned for him to come down. He slid down the mast and landed on the deck next to the man. "Go below, and tell Drumknott to keep everyone there until further notice."

"Sir?"

Vetinari shook his head. "You know your father was the same way. I'd give an express order and he'd come back with 'sir,' like there was something ambiguous about it." He fixed Sam with a look that made the boy wilt a little. "I mean what I say, Sam."

"Er, right," Sam muttered, backing away toward the stairs. "But, uh, do you want me to stay there, then?"

Vetinari gave him a blank look. "Where do you think you ought to be?"

Sam swallowed. Normally, a person would imbue that message with sarcasm or genuine puzzlement over the answer. Vetinari, however, asked it in a way that left no clues to what the correct answer was, although it was clear that there definitely was a right and a wrong answer. Sam quietly made his way below deck, where he found Drumknott doing up his stock tie. The former clerk gave him a nod.

"Everything is alright on deck?" he asked quietly, readjusting his spectacles.

"Uh," Sam said. He took a minute to gather his thoughts. "Hard to say. There's some, um, turbulence? or something, I don't know what to call it. The captain said everyone's to stay down here until further notice."

"Did he? Well." Drumknott primly blew out the little oil lamp that had been burning low by the stairs. "That's that, then. Thank you, Sam."

Sam paused, and then decided that there was nothing for it, and anyway he was a little sick of Vetinari's mind games. "He didn't tell me what to do though. Reckon I should go back up there or stay down here or . . . ?"

Drumknott raised his eyebrows. "Or?"

And that seemed to be it. Sam scowled and made his way back above deck, muttering, intending to go back up to the crows' nest and finish out his shift at least. Vetinari had a map out again, and was, by the look of it, mapping out another course. Or maybe the same course again, who knew. He paid Sam no mind.

He _especially_ paid Sam no mind when the whole Boat vibrated strongly enough for the sensation of it to travel up Sam's legs and settle in his belly in the form of a ball of fear. The ship lurched again, and Vetinari crumpled the map up and folded it away into a pocket. "Don't move," he said firmly. "Just . . . Don't. Move."

Josiah and Sam exchanged a glance across the deck as they simultaneously froze. Vetinari was walking across the deck towards the helm very carefully, as though he was expecting it to explode at any moment, eyes fixed on the sea. "What's happening?" Sam mouthed to Josiah. The older man slowly raised a finger to his lips and shook his head just a fraction side to side. The planks on the Boat vibrated again, slightly, and Vetinari looked sharply starboard, eyes narrowed.

"I told you you were a damn stupid fool," crowed a voice from below. Sam's stomach plummeted as he realized it was Spalding's. "She's out and she's angry – listen to her playing with us!"

As that last declaration rang from below deck, the ship lurched so violently that Sam lost his footing and slammed to the planks. He scrabbled for something to grab to as the ship lurched back the other way. A wave almost totally composed of white froth reared up over the railing. Vetinari broke into a dead sprint for the helm with a cry of "Godsdammit, Spalding!" The ship lurched forward, the stern dipping low enough that water sloshed up over the deck. Sam managed to latch onto a rope as the water tried to wash him back out to sea. As his legs careened close to the railing he looked over and he could have sworn that right below the surface a huge, red eye looked back at him. The deck of the ship lurched and trembled again. Vetinari had made it up to the quarter deck but the last lurch knocked him to his knees. Momentum slid him forward across the now-slick deck and he managed to catch hold of the helm.

Sam braced himself against the bowsprit as the nose of the Boat dipped again. Water rushed up over his legs and torso. Slightly more terrifying, though was the red eye that he _definitely_ saw looking back at him from below the froth and waves. "There's a thing down there!" He screamed, hauling himself backwards on the rope. A long, pink tongue snaked out towards the side of the ship. Behind thick baleen sheets, teeth glinted. "There's a big thing! With teeth on!"

"Smile pretty!" cackled Spalding form below. "She loves a lad with a pretty smile!"

At the helm, Josiah was clinging to the railing overlooking the deck. "Get away from the side! Get away from the bloody side!" A wave crashed over him and a large trout got stuck in his vest. He flung it wildly away from him, obviously intending to cast it overboard but instead hitting Vetinari in the shoulder. The captain looked up with an expression that Sam could only have labeled 'raw, pure, unrestrained, gods-help-us fury' and slammed his fist into the deck. A wood column sprang out of nowhere, and Vetinari hauled himself to his feet, somehow managing to stay there, despite the waves, the rocking, and the apparently enormous sea monster below. "Joshia and Sam, gods help me you will start this bastard up or I will make the rest of your existence as painful as I possibly can!"

The thing was, when someone said something like that, you really didn't believe them. I mean, sure, when you were alive, they might torture you or beat you senseless once or twice, but after? Most people lost interest, or eventually felt guilty. And even if they didn't at least you would probably die at some point. But when Vetinari said is, your body sprang into action without your brain submitting that thought, because deep down inside, in the primal hindbrain where certain unarguable truths were stored after centuries of patient evolution, your brain knew that when Vetinari said that, _he meant it_. He would kill you, and then he would hunt you down in the afterlife and torment you there, and there would be no getting away from it. And so, despite the Boat's highly unstable deck, Sam leapt to his feet and sprang into action.

Of course, he had no idea where to spring _to_, not knowing even vaguely what Vetinari meant by 'start this bastard up.' But Josiah had booked it to the capstan and wrenched one of the arms free of its socket. A short coil of rope fell out. Instinctively, Sam grabbed it. Another rumble shook the Boat, and this time Sam _heard_ the timbers vibrate. His ribcage trembled with the sensation of it. It felt, he realized with a pang of absolute terror, exactly what a giant sea monster's under-water roar would feel like. "Pull on three!" Josiah howled over the noise. "One, two –"

Sam hauled back with all his strength, and behind him Josiah did the same. Nothing happened, although Sam felt a jerk on the other end of the line. It was strong, and firm, and disquieting in the sense that you _knew_ it was mechanical without seeing what you were actually pulling on. Behind him, Josiah had counted to three again, and Sam hauled back again, gasping for a breath he realized he'd been forgetting to take. A splash of seawater flooded into his mouth as a wave crashed over the side and the ship rumbled from below. Sputtering, he spat out what he hadn't already inhaled. It tasted of salt and iron. Josiah screamed a count to three again, and once more Sam hauled backwards with as much strength as he could, chest heaving as he coughed up lungfuls of water, and this time the deck rumbled, and a low groan rang out through the ship. And then there was a rumble that didn't stop, like thunder, and the whole Boat shook with it. "Grab on boy!" Josiah screamed in his ear, and he and the older man latched on to the capstan.

At the helm, Vetinari was smiling in a very not pleasant at all sort of way. His left hand was on the helm and his right was holding some silvery sort of lever. Sam watched him as the ship pitched forward again. As the bow rose out of the water, the captain eased the lever forward.

The ship felt, Sam imagined, exactly what a sinking ship would feel like. It swung forward through the waves, and the whole hull dipped, though the stern dipped lower. He whimpered and buried his head in the crook of his elbow, certain that the whatever-it-was-with-teeth-on was finally going to end it all by pulling them down and making them a tasty meal. And then he realized that while the Boat was still pitching rather violently from side to side, it was more importantly pitching _up_. The thunder had gotten louder. He eased his head up and looked toward the bow.

There was clear ocean ahead, and they were moving toward it. Still alarmed, and a little confused he looked to the stern. Behind, the sea was boiling. Vetinari eased the lever forward even more, and the whole ship _roared_ and shot forward out of the turbid waters. Through the panic, one thought elbowed and kicked its way to the forefront of Sam's consciousness: _'We're going to get away from this'_.

And then, behind them, it seems like the whole sea started to drain; like something had punched a hole straight through the Disc and the water was pouring out of it. Vetinari spun the helm to bank into the whirlpool and hit the lever forward again. The Boat roared along the edge and then broke out, flying off over the open sea. Behind them, Sam's eyes widened as a massive . . . well, it wasn't a whale, however much it might have looked like one . . . reared out of the sea. Vetinari looked back over his shoulder and then looked straight back ahead, expression set and unreadable. Josiah was watching the thing, jaw locked, expression grim.

"That's it," he called over the roar of the Boat. "That's the sea beast." Sam took the beast in as it sank back below the waves, phosphorescent red air pouches behind its eyes throbbing as they re-inflated. Sam watched and waited, though it would be impossible to hear anything over the thunder coming from belowdecks. He wasn't sure exactly how long they stayed like that – he and Josiah holding onto the helm tighter than the common barnacle to its rock, Vetinari steering the ship towards gods-knew-where with an expression that was all at once blank, determined and terrible, and the rest of the crew below. Every once and again, Spalding's mad old cackle would ring out from below, only faintly audible over the roar that was now throbbing in Sam's ears.

--

Sam had fallen asleep after a time. Josiah had volunteered that the source of the sudden speed and the noise were some kind of engines that were the entirety of the Emergency Backup Plan, but other than that they didn't speak; it was too loud to bother with shouting, even. And after a while the adrenaline had worn off, and Sam had started to nod. While the engines below hummed, Sam, still clutching the capstan, fell sound asleep. He wasn't sure for how long, but when the engines stopped Josiah nudged him, and he snapped to attention, before realizing that there was no reason to do so. He slouched over and blearily rubbed his eyes.

"Feeling rested?" Bart clapped him on the back. "How was that for a little bit of adventure, eh? Finally get that taste of high seas action you've been looking for?"

"It wasn't so much a taste as it was an inundation," the younger Vimes muttered, stretching. "But yeah, I think that about does it for my need for adventure for, oh, the next twelve years." He looked warily over the railing. To port was the open ocean, still as glass and shining weakly in the weak pink light of dawn. To starboard there was what looked like a marsh. Long tendrils of moss hung down from gnarled trees – their mass of thin, twisted roots disappearing below the surface of the water. "Where are we now, then?"

"Counterweight Continent," Bart answered, re-coiling the rope that started the engines in the first place and shoving it back into its hidey-hole. "Give me a hand?" Sam obliged and helped the pirate shove the arm of the capstan back into place. "That monster can only travel on open ocean, so we've gone in close to land. Should hold it off of us, maybe give us time to lose it."

"What, er, what was that?" Sam asked, wiping his hands off on his trousers. The whole ship still stank faintly of iron.

Bart shrugged. "Doesn't matter, does it? It was a bloody great monster that wanted to eat us. Happens sometimes."

"Does it?" Sam asked weakly. Bart chuckled. "I've never heard of people having much trouble with sea monsters, is all," the boy went on, on the defensive. "Never really came up in conversation with people who've been on sea voyages, and I'm not thinking that was something someone would be likely to forget."

"Well," Bart conceded, "a lot of the time you get little monsters that don't pose much threat – sea trolls following for a couple days, maybe a hydra but they're not a problem for a harpoon and someone with reasonably good aim. I suppose you could say the big ones are more of a rare occurrence."

"Oh." Sam swallowed. "That's good then. So, um, so are we going to go get the treasure this way then? Sticking to shallows?"

"Oh gods, no," Bart said, almost shocked that Sam would have suggested it. "We have much better odds against the sea monster than we'd have against the Agatean navy. It's going to be risky as it is, getting around the bloody country."

"So it might come back?"

"Might do, yeah."

"Oh gods." Sam looked around the deck. The rest of the crew was inspecting damage, fixing that which needed it, and generally trying to look busy. Sam recognized that sort of business. It was the business of a group of people who wanted to look busy because they did _not_ want to be in the center of whatever was about to happen, but nevertheless wanted front row seats to the event.

"And now," Bart said quietly, steering Sam gently toward the mast, "I think we work on getting these sails properly furled, eh?"

"What?"

Bart swung up into the rigging, Sam following behind, a little bewildered. "The captain," he said quietly, "is not particularly happy at the moment. And Spalding seems to be determined to either commit suicide by Vetinari or drive the man to kill himself, and I think we both know which is more likely. Either way, safest place to be is probably ten feet above deck, looking very busy with the sails."

"Ah. Right." So he and Bart worked quietly, surreptitiously listening to what was going on below. Sam pondered the situation too – he didn't think it was particularly likely that and argument between Vetinari and Spalding _would_ end in death, really. Which raised a more pressing question: if things did get really mucky, how would it get sorted out? It seemed likely that everyone was going to find out because Spalding was making his way up to the helm, where the captain was busy drinking a meditative bottle of rum.

"Remember when I told you you were a damn fool?" Spalding asked, possibly not considering the possible ramifications of having that particular conversation at that particular moment. "Well, I was right then."

Vetinari gave the older man a cool look. Sam, who wasn't even involved in this discussion and was a good fifteen feet away besides, still felt his stomach drop.

"Don't give me that look, you know I'm right." The older sailor dropped his voice lower, so Sam could only pick up bits and pieces. He strained to hear. "She's after . . . maybe the ship too . . . damn key . . . spot?" Vetinari's only discernible answer was a noncommittal shrug. "If you've . . . in the cack . . . four months . . . What then?" The last question was audible enough. Sam, tying up the main sail with a serviceable enough knot, watched the captain out of the corner of his eye.

"Plans," said Vetinari, giving the man a glassy smile, "have only ever gotten in the way, Spalding."

"Yeah, but maybe they're more an obstacle to be dealt with than something to _avoid altogether_, you bloody idiot. It worked well enough when you were Patrician, I'll give you that, but Guild leaders tend to think less linearly than giant beasts, eh?"

"You'd be shocked," Vetinari muttered, taking a sip of rum.

"We'll be there tonight then?" the old man asked, apparently apropos of nothing.

"Should do, if we don't get hung up on the trees."

"She'll know."

"Not if I don't tell her, she won't." The captain paused and then looked back to the man. "Which know are we talking about her knowing?"

"You know," Spalding chuckled. He tossed something to Vetinari. Absently, the captain made to catch it with his rum-free hand – the one with the glove. No sooner than he'd caught the thing, he dropped it to the deck, shaking his hand like he'd been burned. He looked to the other man, and for once, his expression said everything.

"She's gonna _know_," the old man said, tapping the side of his nose. And then he turned and hobbled off toward the hatch, arthritically making his way down to the hold. At the helm, Vetinari carefully picked up the tossed item – it glinted dull grey will a half-hearted sort of effort in the sunlight. Then he dropped it into a pocket and went back to guiding the Boat lazily along the shoreline, as if the whole conversation had never happened. Sam shot a sidelong glance at Bart, who shrugged.

"That didn't strike you as weird?" Sam murmured, slicing a frayed section of rope out and knotting the two ends neatly together. He was getting better, he noted with pride.

"Struck me more as entirely insane," Bart whispered back.

"I didn't leave me feeling very confident," Sam confided. "I mean, it's all got everyone who knows about it a bit worried, yeah? Whatever it is."

"Well, there's always been legends around certain treasures about monsters guarding them and curses and the like," Bart said with a grunt as he heaved a fallen fold of sail up. "But no one's ever been able to prove them. Which isn't entirely comforting, come to think of it."

"And there was that monster."

"Could be coincidence."

Sam gave the pirate a long look. "I'm not a professional in this sort of thing, but I have a feeling that's for a very small value of 'could'."

"Yeah, well you never know."

Sam looked along the shoreline. A slightly breeze was whistling out through the marsh, making the tendrils off mass wave out over the sea. Birds called. Insects buzzed. Somewhere, an unseen wildcat yowled. "Well, whatever it is, I think we'll know a lot more after tonight."

"I've heard Vetinari's got a witch friend that lives in a swamp."

Sam's stomach fluttered once more. "Oh. Well that'll be a nice break from things, won't it?"

--

(1)It rocked slowly, take it easy baby don't you know, that I ain't never been loved like this before.

--=--

Did you read? Well, then, my lovely, I'd be much obliged if you'd leave a review letting me know your deepest innermost feelings. Or, you know, just tell me if you liked the chapter/story or not, I'm not particular.


	9. Kale: a multiuse vegetable!

--=--

The Boat glided lazily up the mangrove shore for the remainder of the day and through dusk, Vetinari not leaving the helm other than briefly once or twice to check the course and landmarks. The crew busied themselves with repairs from the previous night's little adventure. Spalding, mysteriously, had disappeared belowdecks and no one had really concerned themselves with it. As the last dying gasp of the day faded on the horizon, Sam and Bart settled on the deck, looking into the trees as they ate supper.

"So she's a witch?" Sam asked quietly, a continuation of the morning's conversation, as he took a bite out of a stale biscuit.

"I'm told so," Bart shrugged, chewing on half a lemon. "I've never seen any witch though, and we've been this way once or twice before."

"Maybe she's to be avoided."

Bart threw the bare rind into the tangled roots. "Or maybe the captain doesn't really know her, he just heard about her in Rana or something. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Didn't sound like it though." Sam drizzled lime juice on the other half of the biscuit in an attempt to lend it some moisture. It didn't really help.

"Nah, it didn't, did it."

"Reckon he'll go alone?"

"Probably not." Bart pointed into the trees. "See how there's, like, little canals every now and again? He's probably back off one of those, to guess. So this whole ship won't be able to fit down there, and you can't walk across the roots. The rowboat'll probably have to serve, which is easier if you're not by yourself."

"Doesn't mean it's impossible though," Sam mused, brushing the crumbs into the water. Huge catfish lazily wagged to the surface and sucked the remains of the biscuit into their mouths. "D'you see those fish?"

"We should catch one," Bart mused. "Plenty to eat on one of those things."

"Could you pull it in?" Sam asked, leaning over the side. "How much would you say they weigh? Have to be a hundred pounds, at least."

"Between the two of us we could probably get one."

"Excellent idea, Bart," they heard the captain say, and turned around slowly, not unlike little boys who have been caught discussing a deed of questionable permissibility. Vetinari was looking at them from across the capstan, hunched over a map. He raised an eyebrow. "No, I'm actually being serious."

"Really?"

"Yes," Vetinari said, looking up at the first of the stars to appear and frowned, pulling out a compass. Nighttime navigation was notoriously difficult on the Disc and seldom used, because it changed so often. Unlike some planets, where they either sit in place or follow a prescribed trajectory, the Great A'Tuin carried the world wherever he decided, in his infinite turtle mind, was best, so the constellations in the sky didn't stay the same or move on predictable cycles. That said, there were instances in which star navigation was easiest, or unavoidable, and this appeared to be one of those cases. Vetinari frowned upwards. "We've moved," was all he said, before looking back at the map, and then contemplatively at the shoreline.

Bart looked to Sam and shrugged. "Right, so go find a fishing pole," he said, and Sam clambered to his feet and down into the hull of the Boat. He went below the crew quarters and into the storage hold, which was warm and smelled faintly of metal, octarine and lighting, presumably from the monster or the engines. He knew now why there was a large wall across the middle, blocking off the stern half – up to now he'd assumed it was for smuggling. He made his way to the bow, where general equipment was stored, when he paused. Something clinked in the darkness. He peered to the rum bottles, but he couldn't see anything in the gloom, and each was in their own little cubbyhole. Then there was a whiff of something burning, and light flared in the darkness behind Sam. He whirled around to see Spalding, bent over a bench, a vast array of alchemical vessels sliding gently across its surface as the ship tilted slightly in the gentle movement of the water. He noted with some amusement that bumpers had been screwed in on the edges to keep the glassware from falling off.

"Nothing to see here," the old man said, not looking to see who it was. "Just mixing up a remedy."

"Right," Sam said slowly, back toward the bow.

"Is that young Sam Vimes?" Spalding turned and peering into the darkness, squinting. "Yes or no lad, my eyes ain't good."

"Yes," Sam said nervously, hand closing around what he'd come down to get. Spalding nodded in satisfaction.

"They teach you much about alchemy in that fancy school of yours?"

"No, uh, sir."

The old man smiled, pleased, and turned back to his bench. "I know," he said. "And just you remember boy, you're the doctor on this ship, but that don't mean you can fix anything. There's some things can't be fixed by doctorin'."

"Okay," Sam replied, inching back to the stairs.

"Good lad. Run along now." Sam fled.

--=--

The third time the line snapped, Bart's glare toward the large, techni-colored catfish sparkling beneath the clear shallow waters was venomous enough to put even the most deadly snake on the Disc to shame. "They have teeth," he grumbled. "What kind of self-respecting fish has teeth?"

"Bloody huge catfish, apparently," Sam sighed, pulling in his line. "It's no use."

"Well it had better be," Vetinari said from down the rail, where he was watching the scenery drift by pensively. "We're going to have to have something to pay her with, and those fish are worth a fortune." Sam and Bart looked to one another and back to the captain, expressions equally incredulous. "What? Look at the scales – you can dry them and make things with them." He sniffed. "I'm sure I don't know the details but if you don't pull one of those in I'm taking payment out of your personal affects." And with that, he stalked off back to the helm.

Sam looked to Bart, who shrugged. "Beats me how we're going to do it," the older pirate said.

"I think I might be able to help you boys." Josiah sauntered up behind them and put a hand on each of their shoulders. "I've done a fair amount of noodlin' in my day . . . a fair amount."

"Really?" Bart asked.

"Noodling?" Sam asked.

"First thing, you boys are gonna need some rope."

Half an hour later, Sam wasn't really sure where he'd imagined he'd be, but it certainly wasn't hanging by a rope around his middle, being slowly lowered down the side of the Boat in the dim light of an oil lantern. Bart was likewise being lowered next to him but he'd gotten the better end of the deal: he'd gotten a more comfortable-looking rope harness for the little expedition.

"Alright, boys," Josiah called as the two teams of pirates lowered them slowly. Sam's feet brushed the surface of the water. "Now just wait for one o' the real big ones to get close an' then wrap it in a big ol' bear hug. Oh, an' Sam, this might be a good chance fer you to pick up yer swimmin', eh? Hah!"

"I get the feeling I'm going to regret this later," Sam sighed as his calves submerged.

"Just start with dogpaddling," Bart said gently.

As Sam's body dipped into the water, the rope went slack. There was a second of panic, and then the rope tugged taut again and pulled him along as he splashed frantically, trying to gain some buoyancy. Eventually, with the help of an occasional gentle tug on the rope, he was approaching some semblance of swimming.

"I think I'm doing it!" he gurgled, spitting out water as he went.

Bart laughed. "Keep working at it, there's the spirit. We'll make a pirate out of you yet."

"Watch out for the sharks!" Vetinari added from the helm. Sam plunged underwater in his momentary panic. Bart shook his head as Sam regained his rhythm.

"There's no sharks here," he said matter-of-factly.

"Then what brushed my leg just now?!"

Bart shushed him. "Probably a catfish. Now paddle softer, and wait," he whispered. Sam settled into a slow paddling rhythm, allowing the Boat's steady gliding to tug him along.

The first catfish that drifted by them was a small, scrawny-looking brown thing. Sam looked to Bart, who shook his head. The fish dawdled lazily in front of them until Sam's hand brushed it and it darted off into the roots. Ahead, something big and blue glinted in the water and lamplight. He raised his hand to point, but a sudden frantic splashing made him look sharply to the left.

"Grab her tail!" Bart burbled, voice distorted as he spat out the water the fish was splashing into his mouth. The purple line of the thing's massive body twisted and writhed as it tried to escape. As ordered, Sam grabbed the fish by the tail with both hands, but not before getting slapped in the face once or twice. He kicked frantically to keep himself above the water line as the fish maneuvered for freedom.

"That's it!" Josiah encouraged from above. "Now Bart, you slip yer hand into her mouth!"

"I _what_?!" Bart called up, still tangling with the fish's front end.

"Into her mouth! Make a fist and stick it right in!"

"That's what she said," the captain volunteered.

"I am not sticking anything in there! They've got teeth!"

"That's why you make a fist!" Josiah yelled as Sam bobbed up and down in the water. "Do it quick before you drown Sam!"

"Oh gods it's slimy," Bart groaned as his entire arm up to the elbow entered the fish's mouth.

"Well done!" Josiah crowed from the rail. "Now Sam, you're going to – stay above the water now, lad, there you are – you're going to have to hug her higher along her body. And Bart, you keep her in a tight hold!"

"I'm bleeding!" Bart volunteered.

"Argh," said Sam as one of the fish's pectoral spines sliced a line down his cheek. He wrapped his arms around the fish and then, for added security, clamped its tail between his thighs. The fish grunted and struggled.

"Pull 'em up, lads!" Sam felt the rope around his middle tighten and he jerked out of the water. The fish thrashed as the three of them, tangled up in a mess of rope, seagrass, limbs and fish rose out of the water. Her scales glinted purple in the weak light of the lamp and she grunted as she gnawed persistently on Bart's arm.

Eventually the three of them were hauled up to rail height. Two pirates came forward and tied the fish up, lugging it toward the mast and hanging it from the boom. Sam and Bart clambered over the rail, bloody, wet, muddy and dripping seagrass and silt onto the deck. Vetinari scowled. "We just mopped that, you know," he mumbled, taking a swig of rum.

"That," Bart said firmly, pulling seagrass from his hair and flinging it over the side, "was the singly least enjoyable experience of my entire life." Sam simply coughed up some water and, when he saw what else came out of his mouth with the water, moved over to the side and was sick.

"Oh, don't start that again," Drumknott scolded, slapping Sam on the back. The boy coughed up another lungful of silt and water and then wiped his mouth, turning back around. The fish swung back and forth gently from where it had been suspended, and somehow in the moonlight its scales almost glowed. It was altogether eerie and Sam turned to face the shoreline, unsettled. Ahead, he noticed a hole in the mangroves, as if there was a canal going back into them. Drumknott noticed it too and turned toward the captain.

"Sir? There's an inlet ahead, sir."

"Not that one, Drumknott. You'll know." Vetinari leaned heavily on the wheel as he took a drink. "Means we're getting there though."

'Getting there' evidently meant something intangible and alien in Vetinari-speak, Sam discovered, because that was all he ever said when Drumknott pointed out another inlet or pointed out the position of certain stars. Sam waited on deck for another hour or so until, still soggy, he retreated to his hammock and fell asleep.

--=--

"Sam. Hey, Sam, get up."

Sam blearily opened his eyes and brushed his hair out of them. Bart was prodding him with the handle of a mop. He cocked his head and smiled broadly. "We're here."

Sam nodded, sneezed, and rolled out of the hammock, staggering slightly as the Boat rocked when the anchor jerked it back to position. "What time is it?" he croaked.

"A bit past midnight, far as I can tell," Bart shrugged. "Come on, you've got to help row the boat."

"I do?"

The two of them trod up the stairs and onto the deck, bathed in pale moonlight, gray and washed-out looking. The rowboat had been lowered into the water and Vetinari was leaning against the rail nearest the mangroves, staring into the inlet. Lights danced in the trees and something in Sam's stomach roiled. A soft mist was rolling off the inlet's water, enveloping the Boat.

"I'm taking Sam, Bart, Josiah ah, and Bledsoe, why not," Vetinari was telling Drumknott. "You're in charge, obviously. Er, have you seen Spalding, now that I'm thinking of it?"

Drumknott shrugged and Sam volunteered "He was in the hold before we went to catch the fish." Vetinari looked to Sam, expression unreadable. "He was doing some alchemy or something, I don't know," Sam mumbled, looking downwards.

"Right," Vetinari breathed. "Good then. Make sure he's alive, Drumknott, would you? Send Butterfleed, he needs a little more crazy in his life."

"Of course, sir," Drumknott nodded. "Anything else?"

"Keep an eye on the horizon," Vetinari said, more quietly this time. "Selachii is probably still looking for us, and he'd have had time in Rana to get repairs by now. He's probably a week or so behind us – maybe less, the _Integer_'s fast – but he might have patrols out, maybe paid off some fishermen. Just keep your head down. If anyone asks, you're captain and you've anchored here because you're having trouble with the hold."

"Understood, sir."

"Right, then, Bart and Bledsoe, get the damn fish in there, we don't have all night." After a considerable amount of grunting and dragging and one broken rope, the fish was lowered into the waiting boat. Looking down on it, it became apparent that there was not going to be enough room.

Bledsoe saluted. "Happy to stay behind, sir."

Vetinari sighed. "Yes, yes, very good. And don't salute, boy, you're not in the Navy anymore."

"Yessir," Bledsoe replied, snapping off another salute. Vetinari just shook his head and jumped into the boat where Bart, Sam and Josiah were waiting. They pushed off and Sam and Bart rowed away from the Boat, around the prow, and into the mist of the inlet. Josiah sat to the stern and guided them as they rowed deeper into the trees. Sam, only able to see behind them as he rowed, watched as the Boat's lights grew dimmer and, eventually, snuffed out altogether. Overhead, the trees glowed.

"What are those lights?" he eventually whispered to Bart.

"Bugs, probably," Bart returned, though he didn't sound very sure of it. Sam nodded, firmly told himself that they were bugs and nothing more, and kept rowing. A bit later, the rowboat bumped into something that hissed in reply. Sam gulped.

"Crocodiles don't typically attack boats," Josiah said jovially, much too loudly. He was smiling nervously. Vetinari shushed him.

"Go right at the split," he said softly.

Sam rowed the best he could, despite the fact that he was progressively getting more terrified as the little boat drifted deeper into the dense aquatic forest. The lights were denser now, and the mist was clearing, but it was still intolerably dark. The surface of the water, only steaming a little now, shone in the yellow lights, rippling off the prow but otherwise deathly still.

"It's close now," Vetinari muttered. The lights were no longer flitting about overheard, though their numbers had more than tripled. Instead they sat on the banks, stirring slightly when the rowboat drifted by but otherwise still. Sam wished he could close his eyes. Next to him, Bart had set his mouth in a hard, thin line and was staring straight behind them, unseeing. His face had lost all its color, and in the strange light it put Sam in mind of Reg Shoe. Josiah was slightly more relaxed, though he had stopped giving verbal directions and was signaling with stiff waves of his hands instead.

Sam and Bart both started when a loud exhalation burst from the water to the front of the boat. Spray rained down on them as the rowed forward. Then, next to the boat, rose a creature Sam had never seen before. It looked like a nightmare version of a porpoise; its long, thin nose sprouting jagged teeth as it swam up next to them. Its rubbery yellow skin glinted in the lights and it rolled onto its side. Sam had never had a high opinion of animal intelligence(1) but he got the distinct feeling that this hellish dolphin or whatever was watching them, making note, and observing. And then, as suddenly as it had come, it dipped back beneath the dark water and vanished.

"Well that's that," Vetinari sighed. "She'll know we're here now. No point in keeping quiet anymore. So much for sneaking in," he added, more or less to himself. "Right, keep rowing, if we're close enough for her little pets to pick up on us it'll only be a few minutes."

"Right boys, row on," Josiah said, visibly sagging with relief. "The sooner we get off this boat the better, eh?"

"Possibly," Vetinari said. "And then again, possibly not."

"Of course not," Josiah grumbled and then he sighed heavily. "Of course not."

Sam and Bart rowed on for an incalculable period of time. The lights were still there, but there was no sign of a dolphin creature, crocodiles, or any other dread beasts as the little boat glided along across the dark, dead water.

Finally, Josiah breathed out heavily and gestured to something behind the rowers. "There it is, boys. Angle her around to the right, bring her in nice and slow. The two nodded and docked the little rowboat, albeit with some difficulty on Sam's part, since he'd never done it before. Vetinari watched the whole production without emotion, though Sam had been around the man enough now to know that either meant he was furious or thought something very funny, and judging by his frantic coughing fit when Sam almost dropped the oar in to the glimmering water, Sam was betting on the latter.

Vetinari jumped out before the boat was even made fast to the dock, and he strolled up the floating dock to the marshy land, where a ramshackle wood cabin squatted amongst the trees. He paused a minute, considered the creepily face-like knot in the wood at eye height, and then knocked firmly between its eyes. A light went on in the cabin. Josiah led the two boys up the dock, the fish suspended between them. Bart attempted to give Sam an encouraging smile, but it looked rather strained. Ahead, more lights were going on in the cabin, until at last a warm glow spilled out of its murky windows. Sam, Bart, Josiah and the fish came to a halt behind Vetinari just as the door creaked open.

"Too late," snarled the occupant. Sam, who had been expecting something wholly different, although he wasn't sure what, or why, was taken aback and almost dropped the catfish's head into the muck. The cabin's occupant – he assumed the witch – was a short, rotund woman of advanced but indeterminate age. She was Agatean, by the look of it, and her wispy white hair stood out at all angles from her head. She was scowling up at Vetinari, shaking a finger at him. "An old woman, I am." She spoke with a thick Agatean accent, so much so that Sam had to adjust a moment before he was able to understand her.

"Hello, Yorba, darling," Vetinari said smoothly. "Deepest apologies for the hour." He bowed, and Yorba frowned deeper. She made a grunting noise, waved a hand at him and then turned back into her cabin, gesturing for them to follow.

"Come in, if you must." The group trod in after her, Josiah closing the door behind them. Yorba sat down heavily in an armchair and looked to the fish, suspended between Bart and Sam. "Payment?" she asked stiffly.

"Caught just for you," answered Vetinari, business-like. "Where would you like it?"

Yorba gestured to the table, watching them closely as they laid the fish out on the thick boards. She nodded, satisfied, and looked back to the captain. "Wanting something, you are. Not unusual," she added haughtily, settling back into her chair and folding her hands on her considerable stomach.

"Yes, er, yes." Vetinari patted his pockets and, at length, produced two knives, a number 8 throwing stiletto, a flask, a scrap of paper, several bits of string and, at last, the key. He held it out to her for her inspection, but she hissed and drew back.

"Idiot," she snarled.

"Yes, that's what Spalding said," Vetinari muttered glumly.

"Right, the stupid old alchemist is." She nodded. "There is great danger in this."

"Yes, well, we've found that out," Vetinari said stiffly. "There's something after the key, and it's huge and it's got bloody great teeth."

Yorba nodded, smiling faintly. "She is called the Keebep. Guards the treasure, she does. Guards it well."

Vetinari sighed. "Yes, well, our friend the Keebep is something we'd rather not have to deal with, seeing as the Ankh-Morporkian navy is _also_ after the treasure and it's kind of a one or the other situation."

Yorba shrugged. "Not my problem. Sink navy ship. Keebep will not stop."

Vetinari blinked. "There's nothing you can do?"

"No. Keebep too old." She smiled widely, revealing she only had four teeth left. Sam turned away, looking around the cabin. Cloudy glass bottles and strange carved objects swung gently, suspended from the ceiling, and shelves were piled high with clutter, some of which Sam could recognize, some of which he couldn't. In the kitchen he was surprised to see a golem, the fires behind its eyes banked, slouched over, immobile. He gulped and turned back to Vetinari and Yorba. Yorba was looking the captain up and down with an appraising eye, and Vetinari was scowling. She held out a hand imperiously. "Your hand."

Vetinari frowned. "No."

Yorba sniffed. "Cannot stop Keebep, but make her angry, I can do." She smiled sweetly. "Hand."

Glaring, Vetinari offered her the ungloved hand. She shook her head, and, with a sigh, he held out his other hand. She tugged off the glove, businesslike, Sam and Bart and Josiah watching with no small measure of curiosity. Bart looked to Sam, eyebrows raised, and Sam shrugged. Yorba unwound the rough cloth bandage Vetinari had done and looked at his palm, nose crinkling slightly as she did so.

Nothing about it, Sam decided, looked healthy. Then again, nothing about it looked natural either. He'd seen corpses at the guild, long dead, starting to show the decay, and this didn't look like that. There was a perfect circle of blackened skin in the middle of the man's palm, but it was dull-looking, not shiny or slick like the rotting flesh Sam had seen at the Guild. The circle was tinged blue at the edges. Yorba nodded, apparently expecting what she saw, or hiding her surprise well. Then, quickly and before anyone could react, she pressed one of her rings square into the man's hand. He yelped and jumped back, hand clenched. Yorba laughed.

"It looks poorly for you, Vetinari." She jumped down out of her chair and handed the captain his glove back. "Kill you, I think this key will. You are idiot."

"So people keep telling me," Vetinari grumbled, rewrapping his hand and glaring to the rest of the crew in the cabin. _Go on and say a word about this_, the look said, _and I will personally make sure you wish you'd never been born, you'd never died, and most of all, that you'd never met _me.

Yorba was looking the rest of them over now, hands on her hips. "Josiah, yes, and Bart." She smiled to each of them, and they bowed. "Grown, you have," she said to Bart approvingly. "Eating kale?"

"Uh," Bart stammered. "Um, well."

She laughed, and it was neither a comforting nor an unpleasant sound. "Kale is crock," she said definitively. And then she turned to Sam, and she smiled broadly. "You, I have not met." She waved a hand behind her, accidentally (or perhaps not) punching the captain in the stomach as she did so. "You introduce me," she commanded.

"That's Sam, my, er, godson," Vetinari coughed once he'd recovered enough. "Sam, Yorba." He then very definitely turned away, pulling the glove back on over the bandage.

Yorba looked to Vetinari, who was poking through her shelf of mysterious jars, and back to Sam. "Godson?" She made her way over to Sam and took both of his hands in hers. "I am sorry."

"Oh, er, it's alright, I guess," Sam said quietly.

"Why are you here?"

"I – I wanted to be a pirate, I suppose." He looked to Bart and shrugged helplessly. "I don't really know."

Yorba nodded. "Very young, you are clueless. All be fine, it will be. Trust Yorba." She patted him gently on the chest with one gnarled hand. "Sad you are stuck with idiot godfather, though." She laughed and leaned in, nudging Sam in the ribs with her elbow and winking. "A good crew to protect you, there is. Very lucky. Destiny is strong with you," she whispered very quietly, so only Sam could hear.

"Destiny?" Sam asked, thoroughly confused. Yorba winked again and leaned away, saying louder, "Parents?"

"Er, yes," Sam stammered. "Uh, Commander Vimes and Lady Sybil. Is that important?" he asked, as a flash of something crossed Yorba's face, too quickly to be readily identified.

Yorba inhaled deeply. "Worried, are they?"

"I don't know," the boy answered, bewildered. "I would guess maybe so."

She nodded. "Take good care of you, Yorba will. Stay here." The little woman bustled off into the kitchen, fussing over things in the sink. Josiah watched her, leaning around her shoulder not-so-subtly as she concocted something for Sam in the chipped basin. Bart looked to Sam.

"What's that about?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "What's the kale about?"

"Oh, er, ha," Bart laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yorba and I met once before, when I was about your age. She told me to eat plenty of kale for strength."

"Did you?"

Bart looked to Vetinari, who was going through a stash of gold chains, to Josiah, who was still watching Yorba at the sink, and said quietly, "Like you wouldn't believe. My gods, did I ever eat a lot of kale."

Sam laughed. "Did it help?"

"You tell me."

"All done," Yorba proclaimed, turning around. In her right hand she held a string of twine, apparently woven out of seagrass, with a small vial on the end. In the left she held a bowl, in which an orangey yellow liquid was sloshing around. She shuffled back over to Sam and handed him the twine. "Wear this at all times, you must." Sam nodded and strung it around his neck, tucking the vial into his shirt. "Now hold still." Everyone else in the cabin turned to watch as Yorba dipped her finger in the orange liquid, which turned to a paste as soon as her fingers touched it. She muttered in a strange language Sam couldn't understand as she reached up to Sam's forehead. He bent over slightly.

"Polite," she murmured, her breath drifting up to him, heavy and sweet with onion and something else. "Against magic, against arrows, against the Keebep," she intoned as she drew on his forehead with the orange stuff.

"I thought you said –" Vetinari cut in but Yorba shushed him. She finished with a final violent swipe down Sam's face and off the point of his nose.

"And for swimming," she cackled, finishing off. She wiped her thumb on the lip of the bowl and looked to Sam sternly. "You have heard all the glitters is not gold?"

"Er, yes," Sam said, crinkling his nose in an effort to make the drop of orange paste on the end of it either fall off or stop itching.

She smiled broadly. "Good then." She patted him again on the chest. "Now wash your face in the water outside – look ridiculous, you do."

"Er, okay," Sam said, turning for the door.

"Goodbye, Bart," Yorba said gently, setting the bowl down on the table. "Kale is crock, but eat it, you must. For strength." From under the table she produced a large sack. "Here."

"Thank you, Yorba," Bart said solemnly, accepting the sack. And then, because it was clearly expected, he left, out the door with Sam.

Yorba smiled at Josiah, who returned the gesture. "I don't believe in witchcraft, me," he said, not unkindly.

"I know," she answered. "Watch those boys."

"Yes, ma'am," Josiah answered, bowing his way out of the cabin. He closed the door behind him. Yorba turned back to Vetinari, who was watching her from a shadow, arms crossed.

"Give you more time, or protection, I cannot," she said stiffly, taking the bowl of now-liquid orange back over to the basin. "Do not ask." Vetinari sagged.

"Please, Yorba," he said quietly, coming behind her. "I've got four months left, that's not –"

"Not enough?" she snapped, turning around too quickly. Vetinari flinched. "And how much is?" She watched as he shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable. "Be like Spalding, would you? Never to die but always to age?" Her eyes narrowed. "A fool you are. You are old enough now, your destiny is fulfilled." She watched him for a minute. "Know it, you do," she chuckled. "You are stiffer, slower. And the cold and the mist, what of it?" He didn't say anything. "It aches, for all of us," she said then, dismissively. "Mortal, you are. You will die. We all die."

"I haven't done everything," he muttered, eyes narrowed. Yorba's arm snaked out and she grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him down to her level. He winced.

"Greedy," she snarled. "Much too greedy. You will kill them all."

"No, Yorba," he gasped, pulling back against her iron grip. "Yorba, hear me out, please. It's Sam. I have to get him back to the city." Yorba watched him then, suspicious but silent. "Yorba, I have to live long enough to get Sam back. The city needs him. Well, it's going to need him. I'm telling the truth, Yorba, you know it."

"Go on," she said evenly. Vetinari sighed as she slackened her grip.

"Yorba, Rust isn't going to last forever, and the city's better than he could ever be. And the one person that could handle it is picked up and gone in the wind." He shrugged. "He's not there yet, but he will be. And I've got to be there to make sure. And to make sure he gets back."

She sniffed and released the taller pirate, who stood up stiffly. Something in his back popped. "Then you are understanding of the destiny. And too tall." She made her way over to the shelves Vetinari had been perusing. One of the jars was filled with dull gray knick-knacks: iron jewelry and bangles. She pulled out a ring and handed it to him. He carefully took it with the unspotted hand. "Extend your life, I cannot. It is not my power." She nodded to the ring. "But hide you from Death, I can."

"How long?" he asked, looking the slim band over.

"I cannot know." She shrugged. "One year, two months, maybe. Count on more than one year I wouldn't."

"That should be enough," he said meditatively, slipping the ring into a pocket. "How does it work?"

"You put it on," she said simply. "But always a catch there is," she smirked.

"What is it?"

"Put it on."

"Now? I'm not dead yet."

"Put it on."

Vetinari watched her warily and slipped the ring onto one of his ungloved fingers, not touching it with the other hand. For a minute, nothing happened, and then he bent double and fell to his knees, gasping with pain. Yorba watched appraisingly as he managed to pull the thing off. It skittered away across the floor, bumping against one of the chair legs and falling over.

"I thought so," she said simply, picking the thing up and dropping it back into his pocket while he knelt, catching his breath. He looked to her, confused. "The iron in your blood," she explained, "reacts with the ring, grows stronger. And then with the spot it reacts also." She shrugged as he got slowly and unsteadily to his feet, still breathing heavily. "Get rid of the spot to wear it, you must."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Yorba smiled gently and patted him on the arm. He winced. "Four months to figure that out you have."

"That's not very helpful, Yorba."

"Then it is very good for you are clever," she nodded. "Waiting outside your crew is. Go to them."

Vetinari looked the small old woman over. "So am I clever or an idiot? I lose track these days." She didn't answer, she just smiled softly and nodded. "Alright, fine. Thank you, Yorba. Enjoy your fish." She watched as he limped out of the cabin and waited while the door swung shut behind him.

When she heard the rowboat leave the dock, she sat in her chair and smoked a pipe, which smelled suspiciously like kale. Then, after a time, she rose again, and went over to the golem. She laid a hand on its forehead. "Wake up. Needed you are." She turned as the clay man rose and its red eyes blazed to life.

"Yes Miss?" it asked. Yorba didn't answer right away. She was pouring the rest of the bowl of the orange liquid into the mouth of the catfish. When she'd finished, she turned back to the golem.

"Take her to the water, and return," was all she said, before retiring back to her chair and resuming smoking her pipe.

"Right Away Miss." The golem hefted the fish easily, gently, from the table and carried it out the front door of the cabin. He took the thing to the water's edge and then waded in, waist deep. Though he couldn't smell it, the scent of kale wafted out of the cabin as he lowered the fish into the water. The clear black brine drifted across its gills and the fish writhed, coming alive. And then, in a twist of its body, its shimmering purple scales turned rubbery and yellow, its yellow eyes black and button-like in its head, and its whiskered mouth into an elongated, tooth-ridden snout.

The dolphin flicked its tail and swam away from the golem, and off into the mangroves.

--=--

(1) This stems, mostly, from the fact that the only _live_ animals Sam had ever encountered were either sheep being herded to slaughter or cows grazing on the Plains. Not, altogether, the most intelligent of species to encounter.(2)

(2) Of course, this does not take into account the multitude Morporkian dogs, cats and horses that Sam had grown up around. These animals, being from Ankh-Morpork, had evolved into some sort of strange existence that was only vaguely animal – it had more in common with reptiles and included a stamp of uncomfortable intelligence that was altogether unique to Morporkian domesticated beasts.

--=--

Reviews, please, my sweet chinchillas.


	10. Gilted and Wolfy Dentition

**Chapter 10**

-()-

Admiral Selachii watched with some measure of distaste as the crew of the smaller be Trobi vessel climbed aboard the _Integer_. They were clothed predominantly in rough brown kilts. Several of them had long mats in their hair and, indeed, seemed to have intentionally styled them to grow that way. He sniffed. "Lower your arms," he ordered his men. Wood and metal clicked as crossbows were lowered on behalf of the Navy, though no man removed the arrow from its notch. "Do you speak Morporkian?"

One of the Trob looked to the others and then back to the Admiral. "A little," he managed, though he spoke with a heavy accent and the deliberate slowness of one who feels uncomfortable with strange words.

Selachii nodded and made his way halfway down from the quarterdeck, leaning on the stair rail. "We mean you no harm," he said lazily. "It's mere necessity that we have brought you on board."

"Have all fish you want," the Morporkian-speaker said hurriedly. Selachii waved a hand.

"We do not want your fish." He looked down his nose to the man. "What do you know of pirates?"

"Pirates . . ." the man looked to Selachii warily. "Sea thieves?"

"Largely speaking, yes."

"We are not pirates!" The man took a step back, suddenly alarmed, his hands raised in supplication. Selachii sighed. "We steal nothing!"

"I am not accusing you of piracy, my . . . man. I am asking if you know of any pirates in this area."

The man nodded. "There are many. There is Ul'ae Ki –"

"No, not that kind," the Admiral snapped, scowling. "We don't care about your local petty thieves. Have you seen a black ship in these waters?"

"Black?" The man shrugged.

"Black? The color?" Selachii watched as the man turned the idea of a color called black over in his mind. Wearily, he removed his hat and held it out in front of himself demonstratively. He pointed and said slowly "Bl-ack. Black."

"That's hat," the man grumbled.

"It's a black hat, you idiot!" Selachii snarled. "The hat is black!" He almost sagged with relief as the man's eyes grew wide and he suddenly nodded vigorously.

"Black like shadow! Yes, black." He paused. "There has been black ship sometimes." He caught the Admiral's hungry expression and went on "Morporkian speakers on board. Captain spoke well with Trob."

Selachii nodded. "Good, good. And the captain, what did he look like?" The Trob cocked his head to the side, lips moving slightly. Selachii huffed impatiently. "His appearance, man! Tall, short, thin, fat, what did he _look_ like?"

The Trob nodded. "Tall. Not as tall as Trob, taller than Morporkians," he added, gesturing to Selachii, whose scowl was growing deeper by the word. "He not eat much, look like," the man said, gesturing with his hands in an attempt to demonstrate the thinness of the Morporkian captain in question. One of the Trob crewmen, who had been watching attentively, added something in their tongue, and the speaker nodded. "Hair color of those," he added, pointing to the Admiral's white trousers. Selachii smiled.

"And what did he want with you men?"

The Trob shrugged. "Don't know. Asked about another Morporkian. Not sure of who."

"You mean you hadn't seen the other captain?" The Trob shook his head. "And do you know in which direction he headed afterwards?"

The Trob sucked on his teeth, waving his hands vaguely. "Do not know word. Swamps?" He watched as Selachii nodded. "He say swamps?" Selachii nodded to the man cordially, offering the slightest of half-bows.

"Well done, thank you sir." The Trob sagged with relief. "Men, show these fishermen back to their charming little vessel." He paused. "And take note of their cargo – take anything you might like." He turned back to the Trob leader, who was watching in confusion as two Morporkian sailors rifled through their day's catch, pulling out various exotic-looking fish. "You are a friend to Ankh-Morpork. Thank you." He turned away as the Trob were put back in their boat and waved off.

"We sail for the far side of the Counterweight Continent," he told Kevin. "Stay out from the shores – I doubt very much that Vetinari will stick close to them as he skirts their borders."

"Shall we keep a lookout to intercept them, sir?" Kevin asked, watching the Admiral's face carefully. "Or shall we set course for the swamps of Bes Pelargic?

"I doubt we'll run across them from luck alone, Kevin," Selachii snapped. "Vetinari wouldn't be the type to blunder into something like that."

"So Bes Pelargic then?

"No, Kevin," Selachii sighed deeply. "By the time we arrive there, he will have been long gone."

"Then your orders, sir?"

"Let me think a minute, man!" the Admiral snapped. Kevin nodded and stepped back, awaiting word of a course or orders. At length, the man spoke. "Kevin, we have an agent on the rimwards coast of the Empire, outside the wall, do we not?"

"I believe Lord Rust placed Agent Pteppic there a few years ago, sir."

"Good." He nodded to the first mate. "Send a pigeon to the man, tell him to expect us. We will make berth by his outpost until we receive word."

"Yes, sir." Kevin paused. "Word, uh, word of what, sir?"

"Which brings me to the second part," Selachii said, a sort of dark glee creeping in at the edges of his voice. "Prepare to dispatch a second pigeon to our agent in Bes Pelargic, to be sent as soon as I write the letter. Duty to the city calls, alas, for all of us."

Kevin blinked, thought over the order for a moment, and then smiled in a not very nice way at all. "Oh, very _good_, sir. Right away, sir."

Yards away now, the boat full of Trob and less full of fish watched as the sails on the Morporkian ship were unfurled. The speaker, standing in the bow of the boat, looked from the ship to the nearly empty sack of fish on the floor of their own hollowed-out canoe. "Mo'okiano ilio," he growled, and then spat into the sea.

Sam concentrated on rowing during the quiet trip back to the ship. He and Bart only occasionally exchanged glances around the giant bag of kale nestled between them, Josiah said nothing outside of directions and Vetinari hadn't said a single word since leaving the cabin. The lights in the swamp had settled by now, and were sitting quietly, dimly on the shores.

"That's quite a bit of kale," Vetinari said abruptly, totally unprompted. Bart started.

"Er, yes?" he agreed, twisting around to try and get a glance of the captain, and perhaps a guess as to the man's mood or feelings re: the kale. "Yorba is, er, very generous."

"Hmph," was all the response that managed to draw. Vetinari plucked a leaf from inside the bag and twirled it between his fingers, taking it in in the dim light of the swamp and now, closer to the edge, the stars that managed to peak through the foliage. "Why, again?"

Bart shrugged as he rowed. "I dunno, strength, she says."

"S'mentioned in the folk stories around Mithos, isn't it, Josiah?" Vetinari asked, still staring intently at the kale leaf.

Josiah blinked. "I, er, I think so," he said, as Vetinari pulled a run bottle out of his coat. He uncorked it and dropped the leaf down into the liquid. It swayed to the bottom. The captain watched it as he swilled the bottle around once or twice. "The mariners eat heapin' portions a'fore they go out to sea to fend off evil spirits, an' for strength in times o' danger." He sniffed. "Not sure o' the background to those stories though; might've been a folk hero or a prophet o' theirs or somethin'."

"Very interesting." He looked Bart over, re-corking the rum after taking a swig and tucking it back into his coat. "Can you vouch for it?"

"Huh? No, I mean, I'm not sure," the younger pirate stammered. "Might have worked, I dunno."

"Well you're certainly not as weedy as you once were," the captain mumbled, looking over the side to the clear waters below. Silvery fish darted out of the way as the prow of the boat cut a wake in the glass-still surface. "And what sort of souvenir did you pick up, Sam? Aside from the face-painting."

Sam looked down to the vial on his chest. "A necklace," he said, leaning back against the weight of the oar in the water. "I, um, I don't know what's in it."

"Of course you don't," the captain said, waving a hand dismissively. "You know, she painted you all up to protect you from that damn Keebep, right after she says she can't ward it off." He scowled.

"S'prob'ly all crock, sir," Josiah said loyally.

Vetinari looked from the old sailor to Sam. "What else did she say it was for?"

"Magic and arrows," Sam answered. "Oh, and swimming, but I'm not sure she was serious." Sam twisted to look at Vetinari. "That's alright, isn't it?"

Vetinari looked at him for a long minute, eyebrow raised. Then, delicately, he pulled a crossbow out of his coat. Sam's eyes widened, as did Bart's and, less measurably, Josiah's. "Sir, er, what are –" Josiah started slowly, cautiously.

Vetinari loaded a bolt into the weapon and cocked it. "I've always been curious if anything Yorba does is legitimate or not," he answered. "Seems we have the ideal opportunity to find out, hmm?"

"Ye can' jus' shoot him!" Josiah protested.

"You just don't want to row," Vetinari said idly, fingering the trigger. Bart looked quickly from the captain to Sam, who seemed to have frozen in place.

"But he's the doctor!" the younger man said quickly, speaking up in Sam's defense. He wilted as Vetinari turned his attention – and the crossbow – to him. "I mean, if you shoot him, fine, but if he dies then we won't have a doctor anymore and, er, that sort of thing will be all up to you again, sir." He swallowed. "With all due respect and er, yeah."

"True," the captain mused, looking to the crossbow. Then he pulled the bolt from the notch and squirreled it away back into some unknown recesses of his coat. "Sam, you had best thank your lucky stars that Bart is quicker on his feet in the face of edged weapons than you are." He regarded the boy for a minute. "You need to work on that."

"Uh, yessir," Sam said faintly.

"I'll pull a knife on him at every opportunity," Bart added.

"Good, that's the spirit," Vetinari said while Josiah snickered in the back of the boat. Sam turned around and resumed rowing, watching the roots of the mangroves drift past on his side. "I suppose I won't get to test any of Yorba's hexes then," Vetinari muttered, sounding extremely disappointed.

"Not this time, sir," Josiah said, sounding equally put-out.

Sam, feeling like there was another current of conversation going on here, glanced around the boat. The other three occupants were looking at him expectantly. "I mean, I'd really rather you don't shoot me," he said cautiously.

"Anyone know any magic? No?" Vetinari asked as the other two shook their heads. "Well that's just disappointing."

"We could wait to get back to the ship, sir, an' see if Spalding could whip anything up," Josiah suggested.

"What?" Sam whimpered, alarmed. "Please stop trying to kill me."

"No, that's true, that might kill him as well, unless it didn't," Vetinari considered. "And I would really rather we _didn't_ test the Keebep," he went on, "so I suppose that rather exhausts the possibilities, doesn't it?" He looked long at Sam, who was painfully aware that Bart and Josiah were smiling at him in a most unsettling fashion.

"Please don't push me into the water," he said with a sigh, resigned to his fate.

"Oh, _right_," Vetinari said, brightening. "Push him in the water then, gentlemen."

Sam had the sense, at least, to take a deep breath before Bart reached across the narrow rowboat and shoved him over the side into the still black water. The cool water closed over his head and body, leaving him curled in a 'c' shape, floating, suspended, on his back. He squeezed his eyes open, and was surprised to see a small school of silvery fish peering at him curiously. Then he flailed out with his arms, striking toward the surface. He erupted from the water amidst a splash and a slurry of bubbles to see that Bart had rowed the craft several yards up the inlet. "I hate all of you," he announced, damn the consequences. Then he realized that, totally subconsciously, he was treading water and keeping his head quite suitably above the surface. Unable to help feeling a little proud and a little smug, he struck out for the boat with a respectable freestyle stroke.

Josiah and Vetinari exchange a glance. "Has he been practicin'?" Josiah hissed to Bart, who was watching, eyebrows raised.

"No," Bart answered. "At least, not that I know of."

"So no," Vetinari concluded. "Very interesting."

"So I guess it worked," Sam gurgled as he got closer, hooking an arm over the side of the rowboat. "Now let me back in." Bart snickered and reached an arm out to Sam, hoisting him into the boat with some help from Josiah. "Is everyone satisfied with that turn of events?"

Bart chuckled. "Intrigued, sure."

"Now the question becomes whether or not _Sam's_ protection from the Keebep extends to the rest of the crew." Vetinari shifted on the narrow bench. "Still something I'd rather not test, given the option."

"Las' thing we'd want would be fer all of us to get sucked into the brine while he rides away on the bloody thing's back." He winked at Sam as the boy rowed. Vetinari coughed behind them.

"No, obviously that's not something we'd like."

A shaft of moonlight splashed across Josiah's face, and he pointed between the two rowers. "There she is, all quiet, looks like. Row on, boys, not long left."

When the little rowboat broke free of the mangroves, Sam and Bert steered it alongside the ship, hulls dully thunking together. A rope ladder was tossed down over the side of the larger ship, but there wasn't any further sign of life above. Vetinari and Josiah shared a look.

"Bit weird, wouldn't you say?" The old sailor nodded as the captain watched the railing. Sam and Bart, busy making the little dinghy fast to the ship, exchange nervous glances. He lowered his voice "Look alive, boys. Altogether now, one right after the other." He looked back to them, already half out of the boat, and barely managed to repress a sigh. "Sam, what have we told you about weapons in your mouth?"

"Thorry thir." He spat the knife and tucked it into his belt, sheepish.

"Stick close behind me," Bart whispered as he swung onto the ladder behind Josiah. "Captain's right – something's up up there."

As Sam climbed the ladder, he strained to quiet his own breathing, listening intently for any sound up above. There was nothing, no conversation or even footsteps across the deck. His breath hitched and slowly, between rungs, he reached to his belt and pulled out his knife, carrying it carefully in his hand as he swung up the ladder. Vetinari was nearly level with the deck of the ship now, and his hand likewise drifted to his own weapon. He motioned something to Josiah, and the other pirate shimmied up the ladder next to the captain. Cautiously, Vetinari peeked over the edge of the deck.

Sam didn't realize how anxious he was – how much he was expecting that crossbow bolt to fly through the railing – until it didn't happen. He practically sagged off the ladder and back into the rowboat when Vetinari swung up the rest of the way, over the railing. "The hell is going on up here?" Josiah followed suit, and Bart and Sam scrambled up behind them, Bart helping Sam over the rail as the ship rocked a little in a wave.

Drumknott was standing there, rigidly at attention. "We were boarded while you were absent, sir."

Sam wasn't sure you could reasonably call a one-person boarding party as "being boarded," but he wasn't prepared to argue the point. Behind Drumknott, one pirate on either side, was a girl – no, Sam corrected himself as his eyes plunged to just below her neckline, a young woman – her hands bound behind her back. The whites of her eyes sparkled in the lamplight, bright points against her dark skin. She must have caught Sam looking, because she smiled broadly and then it wasn't just her eyes shining in the light – each of her front teeth were capped with gold points, and her serrated shark smile glinted.

Drumknott must have said something while Sam was distracted, because Vetinari stepped forward toward her and she shifted her attention to him. "We can't get her to say anything," Drumknott informed him.

"Are there any casualties?" Vetinari's tone was disinterested as he strode around her, eyebrows raised.

"She didn't even draw a sword, sir. Simply climbed aboard and started yelling at Bledsoe." Drumknott shrugged. "I'm afraid I didn't hear her, and no one recognized the language."

"Hm." The captain leaned back, watching her for a minute. She flashed that smile at him again, and he raised an eyebrow. Then he rattled off something in a language Sam had never heard before and certainly didn't understand. The girl barked out a laugh and stomped her foot, causing the two sailors on either side of her to tighten their grips on her upper arms.

"Maka abda adakad seperti pandai sebagaimana yang mereka katakan!" She was shaking her head, still chuckling. "I am honored, then, and not embarrassed – my errand hasn't been in vain."

"And what sort of errand might that have been?" His eyes narrowed. "And I should remind you that I don't much like the idea of what you've done this evening."

She shrugged. "Understandable. I have been sent by the elders of my nation." She flashed another smile. "They have felt the Keebep stir."

"Have they?" He smiled glassily. "I wasn't aware there was anybody keeping an eye on her movements – would they mind terribly calling her off?"

"Ha! Funny." She shook her head. "We don't command the Keebep, Captain, we merely take an interest in its movements. The elders tell us she is a god sent to protect the world's treasures from falling into the hands of men. Which is more or less accurate."

"The world's treasures, hm?" He cocked his head. "That wouldn't happen to be why you people are even interested in the Keebep in the first place, would it?"

"Of course it is. But not for the reason you are thinking. We are . . . similarly inclined to believe that some things are better off hidden." This statement was made with a tone as pointed as her teeth.

Sam's breath hitched in his chest; Spalding was still the only other crewmember to know exactly what they were looking for, and Vetinari had seemed fairly determined to keep it that way. The conversation was skirting those waters now, perilously close to spilling the name of what they sought. Sam glanced to her, and back to the captain. The man's body language, of course, betrayed nothing, and his expression didn't waver from the politely interested. The rest of the crew was watching him as well, the night air hung thick with the question _'What is she talking about?'_

Finally, Vetinari broke the silence. "Are you intentions hostile?"

"My errand is not one of violence or theft, if that's what you're asking. The elders have sent me with a proposition regarding that which you seek." She glanced from the captain to the crew, her eyes hanging on Sam for just a beat longer than anyone else. "If you don't mind terribly, I would like to put my question to you in a more secluded area. There is no need to reveal more than is necessary about my goals, or my people."

"What are ye, a secret society?" Josiah demanded.

"Yes."

The crew looked to Vetinari, waiting for him to make the next move. "What's your name?"

"Rahsia."

"Very well, than, Rahsia. Unhand her, gentlemen." He sighed and waved to the sailors who were holding her, their expressions thoroughly bewildered. "Follow me, we'll hear what your little business proposition is."

"What the hell is he doing?" Bart murmured to Sam, and the sentiment seemed to be shared amongst most of the crewmembers. "He's lost it."

Sam watched Rahsia walk away, rubbing her wrists. "Did he have it to begin with?" Both jumped as a heavy hand landed on each of their shoulders. Josiah leaned his head between the two of them.

"Best not t'speculate on that. Now break up the sewing circle, ladies – there's work to be done!"

It was much later that night before Sam and Bart could find ten minutes to slip off to some part of the ship together, the better to have a quiet conversation without prying eyes or ears. Sam settled on a barrel of water, back in the hold, by the partition that kept the engines separate from the rest of the ship. Bart sat across from him, on the lip of a giant ice tub for storing fish, and glanced over his shoulder at the stairs.

"Where's the captain?"

"Still talking to that girl at the helm." Sam gnawed off a hunk of brown bread and chewed for a minute. "So."

"Alright, keep your voice down." He dipped his own bread into a mug of ale. "So what do you know? I've seen you listening in, I know you have to know something."

Sam shook his head. "Not much. Vetinari has some map or something to the treasure, and it's something bad, I guess. Anyway, it's cursed, apparently – I think that whatever he has sort of acts like a . . . like a lighthouse for the Keebep. Spalding seems to think he's an idiot."

Bart shook his head. "It's not whatever Vetinari has, it's the spot. I talked to Josiah a little while you were washing up at Yorba's – the person seeking the treasure that the map or whatever leads to gets the Black Spot. It's a marker for the monster."

"So what's the treasure? Where's the map go?"

"That's the thing, there's no telling if it's a map." He looked reflectively into the gold eyes of one of the goats. "Josiah always tells all these stories, some of them have the Spot in it. There's a million things out there that can get you the Spot – maps, crowns, keys, discs, whatever, you name it. The Keebep guards all of them, he said. They're old stuff – toys the gods made and got bored with, threw down to the Disc. They're powerful too, usually; why else would there be a monster to guard them?

The big story goes that hundreds of years ago, a pirate found one of the treasures: a chest of gold coins and bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of money; he would have been rich. But more than that, there was a ring in the bottom of the chest that can disguise someone, hide them from Death and Life for . . . well, forever if you wear it forever. Never-ending youth, never-ending life. Anyway, the pirate wore it, obviously, and everything worked out. He was the worst pirate on the planet, and not worst like bad, worst like terrible and malicious and power-hungry, you know? He had a whole fleet of ships, countries . . . Supposedly Krull was his colony, founded by him."

"Hang on, we're talking about Bloodskull? _That_ is the pirate we're talking about?"

"So you know the story!"

"Well," Sam stammered, "well yeah. But it's a kids' story . . . it's a myth." Bart raised an eyebrow. "Yeah he . . . he stole _Io's eyes_. I mean, seriously, it's ridiculous."

"Well whether or not it's true, that's where the Keebep comes from. Bloodskull steals the Eyes of Io, gains all-seeing power over men, gets his arse stomped eight ways from Octeday, and Io puts the Keebep in the sea to prevent any pirates from stealing any of the gods' old playthings again."

Sam nodded and looked reflectively to the soggy floorboards. He took another bite of bread, stared reflectively into his ale for another minute and asked "But what happened to the ring? Io made a monster – which I guess was the Keebep – to protect all the treasures, but the story never said what happened to the ring. I always assumed he'd had it melted down . . ."

Bart's hole-pocked smile didn't glint; there was no light down here for that. But it was a pale ashen crescent in the darkness of the hold, and he chuckled. "That's one of the endings, yeah. Probably the truth, if there is a truth in a story. The other story is that he took the ring and locked it in a chest and cast it back to the Disc to some obscure, impossible location and threw the key to the chest to the bottom of the ocean. Made it impossible for any man or troll or elf or whatever to get ahold of it."

Sam choked back a laugh. "Yeah, sure, the Black Iron Key, every kid knows that story. You find the Key, you rule the world, right? But you'd have to find the treasure, first of all, and second of all, _it's a fake story_."

"Is it?" The boys jumped as the accented, clipped words drifted to them down the stairs. "So why does it persist?" Gold shimmered dully while she spoke, and her footfalls were silent on the stairs.

Sam couldn't hide his chuckle this time. "Because stupid people still go looking for it. And it's a good story, I guess."

Rahsia shooed the goat away and sat next to Sam, brushing the non-existent dust off the crate of lemons before she did. "Never underestimate the power of a good story. After all, the best stories are sometimes true. A little bit, at least."

Bart scoffed. "Another teaching of your elders? Where're you from anyway? And why are you still on the ship?"

"Your captain's decided to allow me passage with you to your destination. It's part of our deal."

Sam inhaled as her arm brushed across his chest, right before she plucked the remaining hunk of bread from his fingers. "So he took your deal."

"Bits and pieces. His talent was wasted in politics, you know." She raised a delicate eyebrow, just visible in the dark. "You Morporkians never realized how safe you were."

Bart raised a hand. "So you're saying the story's true?"

"I never said that."

The lighter glows of Bart's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing on this ship?"

She sat back, chewing and swallowing in her own time. "The agreement is confidential. As I said, I will travel with you to your destination. You needn't know more than that. Nor do you need to worry that I will do anything to compromise the goal of your mission. Just that I will be joining your crew." Icy silence settled over the trio. "Your captain and I have . . . similar interests and intentions," she elaborated. And that seemed to be all she was going to say on the matter, because she sunk her shark teeth into the bread and smiled cheerfully at the other two.

"We were having a private discussion," Sam muttered, not meeting her eyes.

"About children's stories, yes, I heard you. What are your names?" She sighed around the mouthful of bread. "Boys, there is no need for suspicion – I'm legitimate, trusted by your captain. I would not harm you."

"Bart," the older of the two grumbled. He shot Sam a look. "She's going to find out eventually. If Vetinari didn't already tell her."

"He didn't, but your trust that he won't be underhanded about his own crew is endearing." She turned to Sam. "And you?"

"Sam. Sam . . . Never mind. Just Sam." He glowered in the dim gold smile. "I don't have to tell you."

"It would have been less awkward when I used your surname, Samuel Vimes, but suit yourself."

"He did tell you!"

"He did not." She rose. "Suffice to say, Sam, that the Keebep is not the only thing the elders choose to keep their all-knowing Sight on. Thank you for your bread, and for your company, boys. I do so love stories."

"You know what we're sailing after then, don't you?" Bart called, when she was halfway up the stairs. "What Vetinari's after?"

Even in the dark, Sam could see she looked surprised. "Of course I do. The elders would not have sent me for anything less."

"So it's important."

"Important enough for them to send me, yes."

The question spilled from his mouth before Sam could stop himself. "Is it the Key?"

A zig-zag of gold. "Is that even possible – that shadow of a children's story? It's not my business to tell you what you're hunting, boys. In time, you will find out. Pleasant dreams." And with that, her presence vanished from the hold, and Sam and Bart once again sat alone in the mess of cargo.

The special silence of a ship settled around them. The boards creaked, cargo slid and rumbled across the floor, the machinery groaned on the other side of the partition and the glass bottles clinked suggestively. A goat bleated. But it was silence, in its way.

Finally, Bart sighed and tossed his bread to Sam. It bounced off the other boy's skinny chest, but Sam fumblingly managed to catch it before it fell to the floor. "Sam, how is it _everyone_ knows something about _you_?"

"I don't know." He sunk his teeth in to the bread with a little more force than necessary. "But I damn well hope they tell me sooner rather than later."

-()-

HO-OLY SHIT I UPDATED SOMETHING WHAT THE HELL.

REVIEWS FUEL ME LIKE PIMPJUICE.


End file.
